Australian government tells citizens to turn off two-factor authentication
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/12/australian-government-tells-citizens-to-turn-off-two-factor-authentication/
The Australian government has repeatedly called for citizens to
turn off two-factor authentication (2FA) at its main digital
government portal, myGov. The portal's Twitter account has
recently been updated several times with cute pictures
encouraging holidaymakers to "turn off your myGov security
codes" so that "you can spend more time doing the important
things." The portal is the place where Australian citizens can
use and manage a number of governmental services, including
health insurance, tax payments, and child support. In case of
myGov, two-factor authentication is implemented by sending users
text messages that contain one-time codes to complement their
usual passwords.
- - -
If they offered more modern 2-factor than unreliable SMS messages, this
problem wouldn't exist. Authenticator type apps neatly solve this
problem. By the way, eBay/PayPal are currently broken in a manner that
prohibits eBay users buying with PayPal from authenticating 2-factor
with other than SMS messages, even when they have security keys
(authenticator keys) set up on their PayPal accounts. Idiots.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
I have consulted to Google, but I am not currently
doing so -- my opinions expressed here are mine alone.
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