hpr3784 :: Two factor authentication without a phone number
Diving into privacy-aware and offline methods to generate one time passwords
Hosted by Celeste on Thursday 2023-02-02 is flagged as Clean and is released under a CC-BY-NC-SA license.
Tags: 2FA, OTP, TOTP, HOTP, security.
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Part of the series: Privacy and Security
In this open series, you can contribute shows that are on the topic of Privacy and Security
Many services implement 2FA (Two factor authentication) by sending you a OTP (One Time Password) using an SMS with a random code, but this forces you to give them your valuable phone number. What alternatives do exist?
Let's dive into the HOTP, used by some banks years ago through a physical token and the recent TOTP, which both let you generate completely offline codes without using any phone number or any other personal detail. They use the HMAC technique usually with a SHA-1 one-way hashing function, but other hashing functions can be used too.
Useful links:
- a little visual explanation I found here
- Aegis android OTP generator
- use TOTP in KeepassXC for a desktop generator guide
Let's keep Webauthn maybe for a future episode, I'm still exploring it and have to do more research.
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