2FA

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Revision as of 15:17, 5 April 2022 by Brian Wilson (talk | contribs)
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2FA is short for "2 factor authentication", which for me, is based on these.

  1. Special hardware (eg ETrade)
  2. Twilio Authy (In addition to devices it runs on desktops too, including Linux)
  3. Google Authenticator (It turns out this is completely redundant.)
  4. SMS

Listed in order of personal preference. There are others. Mostly the method is "TOTP", which translates to "Time-dependent One Time Password". SMS is the least secure, avoid this one.

I want to try one of the commercial widgets, um, brand? Probably Yubikey, but don't want to pony up the $45 per token. (= $90 because 1 for me one for backup) The idea here is that you plug the widget in as a USB device and then as long as it's plugged in you don't need to type the 2FA code. There is a feature in Psono that lets you leave the TOTP device on one computer and access the code through a Psono client.

Migrating to > 1 device

I want redundancy and currently I have just one Android phone set up.

Twilio Authy -- add more devices whenever it's convenient. Use a phone or a desktop. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-set-up-authy-on-multiple-devices-for-more-convenient-two-factor-authentication/

Google Authenticator -- cancel service at each provider, then add back in and set up all devices at the same time. Not convenient. Since I had to cancel service everywhere I had Google Auth, I migrated to everything to Authy and then removed Authenticator from my phone.

Authy guidelines

https://authy.com/blog/understanding-2fa-the-authy-app-and-sms/