Source: https://mstdn.isometry.group/@Cahatstrophe2/117323121764942610

I miss my old 486 with DOS and Windows 3. No login, no updates, no subscriptions and collaboration only with actual physical friends coming over. New software from the computer market or pirated by sharing floppy discs on the schoolyard...

I mean get Linux and don't update?

Doesn't give me the nostalgia feeling and is also multi user by design.

Sites keep pushing Passkeys on me. I tried them. Did not work cross device. Did not integrate with every app. For now, I gave up on them.

It’s only a secure technology when it works and the key turns in the lock.

That's what Google use. I lost access to a Google account even though I had the right password because they randomly decided they didn't think I was the account owner, and I didn't have a phone number attached so the account recovery wasn't available

I kept seeing a popup about adding a phone number because I might lose access to my account. I removed the phone number a decade ago. You mean my recovery email, OTP code, and backup codes can't be used for recovery motherfucker!?!

Anyway I exported everything and closed my account because the fascists can eat a dick.

Same thing happened with my Binance account. Then when I finally started to get some traction with customer service, my state banned Binance. And now it's effectively gone forever

most sites when you use a vpn

works cross-device with third party password managers (or smart keys like yubikeys)

I'm nostalgic about my 486,but I don't miss it. I had the 25 Mhz, MEGAHERTZ not GHz version and it was pretty damn slow. The upgrade to the 100Mhz chip was great but it wasn't until multicore CPUs before I felt that computers got fast enough for me.

I've been there, deleted my Gmail a while back and then two weeks later realized it was attached to a login I didn't want to lose.

Me after setting up SSH on a server and unable to log in remotely:

Which defeats the point doesn't it

Oh, we already have that last option at work. Has made work soo much nicer.

Time to go back to communication via letter and telephone and read encyclopedias.

meanwhile there are LLM call centers with no authentication

I called one, and the only authentication they asked was my birthday. instead of asking me my name or other details it just said "please confirm, are you [full name]?"

that's all the security to access my private data!

then after going nowhere I managed to be transferred to a human and it took them a few minutes to authetify me.

You won't get back that LAN only world of the past but in Linux and even Windows you can simply disable network adapters/controllers. Maybe if I ever have kids I'll recreate a LAN only environment for them.

Yeah I don't like those things. If your password is two or three words, with a special character and 3 numbers anywhere before between or after, it would take millions of years to brute force, and then you're still covered with auth codes 2 factor. Theres no point in having a password so complex that you yourself can't remember it.

The only exception is when a common password is found in a data breach, but you should have unique passwords for work and financial accounts and theres no guarantee that the password managers won't be hacked at some point.

Common misconception. The whole point of a password manager is so that you can have a unique password for every account. This means that of one site is compromised, only that one site is lost.

Passkeys take this a step further by taking a keylogger out of the equation since you’re no longer typing the password. And by using biometrics instead of a password to unlock your password manager, no password is ever typed significantly reducing the ability to steal it. Even better if it asks for both.

And to the point of one point of failure, this is always the case as you could get knocked on the head and forget all your passwords. You now only have to manage one potential point of security failure rather than however many accounts you have online.

They may work, this was years ago before OTP was so widespread, and I don't remember if it had a recovery email associated or not. I just remember I had the right password and it wouldn't let me in anyway

You cannot call yourself an admin if this didn't happen to you.

CMMC Level 2 has entered the chat.

Twitch is the one that I don't get. Their opaque password requirements feel like something you'd use to secure bioweapons.

Got I wanted a Yubikey for so long hearing about them. And earlier this year, Work got everyone Yubikeys for work, and they are essentially mandatory to use, and good fucking God so I hate Yubikeys.

Now I have this thing I have to carry around and dig out and plug in and my phone is going to eventually require it too and what the fuck happens when I inevitably lose it or it gets broken because it's very flimsy feeling and already looks a little bent.

Yubikey isn't really biometrics though is it? You can like it with any body part or even a hot dog if you wanted.

That's why I hate banking apps. It's 5-factor authentication for me and it's seriously annoying.

The factors for logging into the internet banking are:

1. Having a password manager - Something I have
2. Remembering a master password - Something I know
3. Having a banking app on the phone (🤮) - Something I have
4. Using a password to log in to a user that has the app installed (I have a GrapheneOS and the banking app requires Gurgle services, so the services and apps must be separated) - Something I know
5. Using a PIN inside the banking app to confirm the login - Something I know

At the end of the day, if someone is targeting you, specifically, they WILL succeed. See the Wrench Method. The point is making yourself a more difficult target for the blanket hits and data leaks.

usually you have two of them with the same keys so you have a backup (at a safe place), but I do admit it feels really unsafe

Sounds pretty good actually

It all depends on what you want to do with it. I had plenty of great games and applications on my 486 DX4.

Also, nowadays you can swap out the old spinning rust with a BlueSCSI or PicoIDE and get much faster disk access.

I heard of passwordless login and I just can't trust it

Damn you apf / csf. *Shakes fists at sky

Every time I come up against that, I decide whatever I was trying to login for isn't worth my time. It's been happening a lot lately.

I kinda like the ones where you enter your email address and they email you a temporary password, that way we don't have to ever remember or save a password. I think that's secure enough, no?

Personally, im thrilled

I can't stand how many websites are making me check my email or text messages for 2fa shit. Just let me use a TOTP, or even better, a passkey to get into my account!

I hate those magic links...
I am trying to login on a different device than I am able to receive and open the link on...Bloody impossible.
Now I either shorten the link somewhere or I chat me the name through discord or teams or whatever just so I can log my account in on a foreign machine.

Now you have to maintain two pieces of electronic to keep up-to-date.
Very grear.

It's like a monkey's paw. I felt like I was spending too much time online a few years ago and slowly the internet has been giving me more reasons to not use it.

I especially love how it lets anyone that can access my email login in to any site that uses that pattern! That's the best! So now someone only has to hack one thing to get access to all my stuff, it's super convenient.

Hell no, then I have to find my phone to log into my email.

I was stopped by a bouncer in a bar and was asked to show ID. I had forgotten my wallet with my ID, but luckily, I have the national app for the driver's license. But to get that, I need to log in with my bank's secure login. That login is behind 2FA so I needed to approve with a separate app and type in my password. My password is safely stored within a password manager. But that password manager's access on my phone requires login through the microsoft single-sign-on. The microsoft login is buggy and requires me to manually log in through a separate URL.

I was arriving at the last step of my login before the bouncer announced that he saw that I was over the age limit of 18, so I didn't have to continue. I was 33 at the time.

Medical company sends me a bill after insurance for $5.34.

They first send me 7 e-mails telling me to pay it online. Every single day for a week.

In order to pay it online, the first screen is to log in make an account that fails to load in firefox.

So I try the webpage in chromium, an account setup requires 2Fa and submitting an ID to pay a bill.

I say fuck that block their e-mails and wait until they send me a paper bill.

Paper bill arrives and I dust off the old checkbook. The last check was written in 2017 for some school pictures for my kid who just graduated college.

Takes me 10 seconds to write the check and $0.82 for the stamp. It got mailed the next time I took the dog for a walk and checked the mail.

I just looked up the cost of ordering new duplex checks that I prefer. Looks like around $0.25 each.

Now if I want too I can get laser printer checks for around $0.15 each. I might just go that route. I bet I can find a Linux program that will print them easily.

The Internet was nice while it lasted but it looks like I am back to writing checks for everything.

This effort was using a third-party cross-platform password manager.

The specific case was a mobile game that needed to open a web browser that logged into a secondary account system, which I had set up to use passkeys. The in-app browser didn't seem aware of my phone's password manager plugin, and so it allowed no way to get in. Other times, logging in on a web browser with the password manager fully working simply gave an error - which could be blamed on the individual account provider, but then if I'm taking a chance on each passkey account, it's again pointless.

for text ones, but what about just email ones?

Don't most websites use email when you press the "forgot password" button anyways?

my favorite is when you type in a password then it makes you do an email code anyways, OR you press the "forgot password" button and.... you just do an email code. It's just 1 factor authentication with extra steps

Sites shouldn't be letting you reset a password without answering security questions first either.

What was the middle name of your first highschool girlfriends dog?

Still, it would be a fun weekend project, you can start with Linux, set up autologin, set dosbox to autostart on startup, you can even install Windows 3.

Or just for that nostalgia hit:
https://archive.org/details/win3-1