Oops: forgot another really nifty thing Google does: 10 1-time PINs for when you are really stuck and need a login and your phone is dead, your out of country, not near a computer and generally hung out to dry. These are printed out or stored in a file and used one at a time as the second factor when all else fails. A supreme fallback.
-- Owen On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 9:21 PM, Owen Densmore <[email protected]> wrote: > After a scare having to do with email, and reading Mat Honan's tail and > subsequent expertise, I finally converted to Google's 2-step (2-factor) > authentication. > > Kinda an adventure. But so far so good. Thanks Sam for sorta kicking me > off the ledge. > > Google did an amazing job of making it approachable: > > - Trusted: You can specify computers that are "trusted" thus only have to > do vanilla logins. This means my Air and Mini don't have to do further TFA > .. after doing it just once. > > - Mobile/Apps: Google offers an interesting stunt: App Specific Codes. > These are hash-like passwords for mobile and desktop apps that depend on > Google but can't do the 2-factor login. You simply specify a name for apps > that need this (for me, Mail.app, iCal, iPhone apps and more as I discover > them) and are given a new password for them to use. Magic. > > - Authenticator: Google initially has you depend on SMS or Voice mail to > send you the 30-second, 6 digit PIN implementing the second factor. But > you can also download an app for smartphones that act like RSA cards, > giving a new PIN every 30 seconds. Its great because it works without the > network, and also is simpler to use. Also solves the "mobile" problem > traveling to europe .. you can get a euro-SIM and not be cut-off. > > So the experience is pretty much as before after "registering" my trusted > devices and App Specific Codes. All work only on thing "I have", thus the > second factor. > > I'll try this for a month while upgrading passwords elsewhere .. then I'll > one-by-one start 2-factor on Dropbox, PayPal, Schwab, Facebook (which I may > just kill), AWS and finally, Wordpress (if I haven't migrated it to > JavaScript). I'm hoping 2-factor will take off so that every month I'll > have a new one to consider! > > -- Owen > > > > >
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