rust-u2f VS howdy

This project aims to support U2F / FIDO2 using fingerprint reader on Linux (via libfprint). The goal is to have the same user experience with 2FA using Windows Hello.

This project is based on https://github.com/danstiner/rust-u2f with minor modification (see my fork: https://github.com/ngxson/rust-u2f-pkexec)

Link to the project: https://github.com/ngxson/softu2f-fprintd-docker

I've considered adding FIDO2 support to the software-only U2F token I wrote ( https://github.com/danstiner/rust-u2f). It's a fair bit of work though, and I am not sure how comfortable I am with passwordless login unless the keys are kept purely in hardware such as a TPM.

That said, my reading of this post is that FIDO2 support will get built into Chromium directly, which is itself open source. Or if you do want a hardware key but running open software, I'd definitely recommend https://solokeys.com/, I've been following them for a long time.

Also there was some related discussion on this same article last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31274677

On a Workspace account you only need U2F token emulator (https://github.com/danstiner/rust-u2f woks fine) and thenn you can setup u2f first and add normal TOTP in second step. But u2f must stay there. I don't have a personal account to try if it works the same.

As it becomes easier to emulate hardware tokens[1], Google may start limiting which ones it accepts. I believe they can use attestation keys to do that.

This is just a softer layer of security to slow down less sophisticated mass signup attempts.

They may very well eventually phase out TOTP, under the justification that it is not as secure, but I would be shocked if they ever retire the highly insecure SMS verification.

TOTP is really easy to implement, and adds a ton of value. I have a oneliner that takes a screenshot, extracts the QR code with zbarimg, and adds it to my pass[2] password database, which then hooks back into my browser. I use it whenever it is available because it is so low effort.

[1]: https://github.com/danstiner/rust-u2f

GitHub has a couple of others listed, but I have not tested them personally: Example https://github.com/danstiner/rust-u2f

you can even use facial recognition with IR webcam

Source

I just bought a go 2 (not laptop go) this weekend and installed fedora 37 on it. Almost everything worked without the surface kernel except the camera requires v4l2loopback kernel drivers to create a gstreamer device for apps that don’t support libcamera. There were only old versions available in copr but no surface kernel headers available so I couldn’t build the kernel modules. I switched to ubuntu 22.10 and got similar hardware support but more available packages. I’m still trying to figure out how to get the IR sensors to work so I can use howdy for login/sudo. https://github.com/boltgolt/howdy

First, you'll need to install Howdy.

I've tried using Howdy, but that doesn't seem to work. It's probably because of this issue

Just like with digicams, it is not just about the sensor, but also the image processing itself. Should we omit the IR sensor to replace it with a better firmware-based noise-reduction system? But what about "Howdy" / "Hello" users, if we go this route?