I thought we all assumed 'security questions' are just security
vulnerabilities, and just fill them in with `crypto.randomBytes(64)`.

On Mon, Aug 22, 2016 at 5:59 PM Julien Vehent <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Tue 23.Aug'16 at 10:48:28 +1000, Ryan Kelly wrote:
> > On 23/08/2016 10:43, Richard Newman wrote:
> > >     Under the hood there would be a bunch of shamir's secret sharing
> and key
> > >     wrapping palaver to actually make things go.
> > >
> > > You mean like wrapping the user's kB with their own kA (prove ownership
> > > of your account) plus your friend's kB (prove non-resetness of their
> > > account)? Yeah, that's a dance, but it could work :)
> >
> > Right, something like that.  Alternately, wrap kB with an escrow
> > recovery key kR, shamir split the secret kR, and encrypt the different
> > parts of it in different ways - one part with the user's kA, one part o
> > with the buddy's kB, one part with answers to security questions, etc.
> >
> > But at that point I may be wandering into "fun crypto games" territory
> > rather than "solve a user problem" territory, which does happen to me
> > sometimes :-P
>
> Just to be a downer here (apologies in advance).
>
> I think that works great in theory. In practice we would end up with
> a bunch of users who listed their ex-spouse who left with the dog and
> the microwave 2 years ago and can't be reached out. I can already see
> the bugs coming into triage...
>
> I like the algorithm Richard described, but as a user, I rarely remember
> any of my security answers. To the point that I write them down in an
> encrypted file. I'd be curious to know how non-tech users handle them.
>
> - Julien
> _______________________________________________
> Sync-dev mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/sync-dev
>
_______________________________________________
Sync-dev mailing list
[email protected]
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/sync-dev

Reply via email to