a simple workaround for lack of OAuth
Amir Michail
One could just have the user enter an assigned code into the bio/url
or even in a post (which would also help promote your service). Doing
so would allow the user to "claim" the twitter account and associate
it with his/her account in your service.
Unlike OAuth, this would even make future logins simpler.
Is this a reasonable way to go?
Amir
Chad Etzel
By "future logins", do you mean to twitter? or to your service?
-Chad
Amir Michail
> This is a good method to verify (claim) an account, yes... but if you wanted
> them to be able to do any sort of authenticated request (like tweeting or
> sending a direct message), you'd still need their password. That is, unless
> you are asking twitter to change the way their API works.
>
> By "future logins", do you mean to twitter? or to your service?
>
> -Chad
The problem for me though is that without user-specific authentication
(i.e., I use authentication under my account always), IP-based rate
limiting is a severe problem making this at best a temporary solution.
Amir
TCI
them a DM with a URL. Builds followers and eliminates errors from user
side.
R
Amir Michail
> I find it better to get users to follow your account and then send
> them a DM with a URL. Builds followers and eliminates errors from user
> side.
> R
Amir
fastest963
multiple accounts?
@al3x A better alternative would be to just create an API key for
every user. Instead of entering username/password, they would enter
their secret API key?
Amir Michail
> @Amir That is not a very relevant question. Why do you want to make
> multiple accounts?
Anyway, I found out that creating multiple accounts is fine.
Amir
Stut
> A better alternative would be to just create an API key for
> every user. Instead of entering username/password, they would enter
> their secret API key?
This is far less secure than OAuth and is actually not much better
than requiring a username and password.
One of the core benefits of OAuth is the ability to be very specific
regarding what each authorised application is allowed to do, on a per
application basis. It also allows you to selectively revoke the
permissions of any specific application without needing to ask or even
tell the application about it. To do this with the API key system you
effectively need to re-authorise every app you use when you want to
block just one of them. No real difference between this and having to
change your password.
I would much prefer that the guys (and gals) at Twitter concentrate on
getting OAuth properly implemented (which is harder than it sounds)
than their attention gets diverted by developers too impatient to wait
for the right solution to the problem.
-Stut
Alex Payne
touches on a BETA release of our OAuth support. It's going to have
bugs, to be sure, but we should have it out there soon.
--
Alex Payne - API Lead, Twitter, Inc.
http://twitter.com/al3x
Amir Michail
> We're currently waiting on our User Experience team to put the final
>
Amir
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 12:53, Stut <stut...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 24 Nov 2008, at 15:13, fastest963 wrote:
>
> >> A better alternative would be to just create an API key for
> >> every user. Instead of entering username/password, they would enter
> >> their secret API key?
>
>
> > application basis. It also allows you to selectively revoke the permissions
> > of any specific application without needing to ask or even tell the
> > application about it. To do this with the API key system you effectively
> > need to re-authorise every app you use when you want to block just one of
> > them. No real difference between this and having to change your password.
>
> > I would much prefer that the guys (and gals) at Twitter concentrate on
Alex Payne
say less than a month and closer to a week by far, but please don't
hold me to that.
Richie
do you have any updates on when OAuth is available?
Currently I'm doing the finishing touches on a new service and would
love to let the users choose OAuth for authentication instead of
requiere them to give me their secret pw. I'm experienced in using
OAuth so I expect to get it working in a couple of hours.
Do you think Twitter will enable OAuth this week or should I start my
service with user/pw-authentication first?
Richard
Alex Payne
before the end of the month. I'd definitely encourage you not to
launch on it, though, as it will be a beta.
Richie
http://scobleizer.com/2009/01/01/twitter-warning-your-data-is-being-sold/
Richie
http://twitter.com/RMetzler
On 8 Dez. 2008, 18:09, "Alex Payne" <a...@twitter.com> wrote:
> It won't be available for testing this week, but should be available
> before the end of the month. I'd definitely encourage you not to
> launch on it, though, as it will be a beta.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 08:16,Richie<rocketeer.so...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi Alex,
>
> > Currently I'm doing the finishing touches on a new service and would
>
> > Do you think Twitter will enableOAuththis week or should I start my
Cameron Kaiser
>
> http://scobleizer.com/2009/01/01/twitter-warning-your-data-is-being-sold/
Truly OAuth is needed, and is a priority to the Twitter team (they've said
so). However, there is nothing in the link that Scoble has up saying directly
that the buyer is planning to use the information Twply has harvested (namely
usernames and passwords) for nefarious purposes other than to continue
running the site. They certainly could, but Scoble needs to chill out a
little.
More to the point, there is nothing about OAuth that prevents a similar
bad actor from behaving badly. This older post puts it in perspective very
succinctly:
http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/msg/16bf699d39c7f804
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Stuart
>
> I think it's getting more urgent day by day:
>
> http://scobleizer.com/2009/01/01/twitter-warning-your-data-is-being-sold/
I agree that OAuth can't arrive too soon, but this episode sucks
mainly because there is no need for something like twply to need your
password. This annoyed me so much that I spent this afternoon coding
up a site to prove that point.
Feedback greatly appreciated: http://replies.twitapps.com/
-Stuart
Cameron Kaiser
> mainly because there is no need for something like twply to need your
> password. This annoyed me so much that I spent this afternoon coding
> up a site to prove that point.
>
> Feedback greatly appreciated: http://replies.twitapps.com/
That's pretty clever. Nice work.
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-- Shady business do not make for sunny life. -- Charlie Chan -----------------
Dharmesh
Quick question: How are you ensuring that you see *all* posts in the
public timeline? I didn't think that was quite possible yet with the
Twitter API.
On Jan 2, 1:11 am, Cameron Kaiser <spec...@floodgap.com> wrote:
> > I agree that OAuth can't arrive too soon, but this episode sucks
> > mainly because there is no need for something like twply to need your
> > password. This annoyed me so much that I spent this afternoon coding
> > up a site to prove that point.
>
> > Feedback greatly appreciated:http://replies.twitapps.com/
>
> That's pretty clever. Nice work.
>
> --
> ------------------------------------ personal:http://www.cameronkaiser.com/--
Stuart
> Nicely done.
Thanks.
> Quick question: How are you ensuring that you see *all* posts in the
> public timeline? I didn't think that was quite possible yet with the
> Twitter API.
It's actually using the search API not the public timeline.
-Stuart
Ed Finkler
It's how he keeps people paying attention to him.
I'd find more reputable sources for that argument.
--
Ed Finkler
http://funkatron.com
AIM: funka7ron
ICQ: 3922133
Skype: funka7ron
Mark Ng
>
> I think Scoble likes to hear himself talk, and loves to stir up drama.
> It's how he keeps people paying attention to him.
>
> I'd find more reputable sources for that argument.
Whilst there's an element of truth in your statement (just about all
of the prominent tech bloggers remain prominent by stirring up drama),
lots of people have been saying similar things for a long time. Ad
hominem attacks don't change the fact that the message is right. You
could start here : http://adactio.com/journal/1357 .
I think we all understand, however, that the twitter engineering team
first needed to make twitter stable before they could add features
like this one. Now that they've largely done that, it appears they're
responding to demand for features like this one, which is great news.
Mark
Cameron Kaiser
> > It's how he keeps people paying attention to him.
> >
> > I'd find more reputable sources for that argument.
>
> Whilst there's an element of truth in your statement (just about all
> of the prominent tech bloggers remain prominent by stirring up drama),
> lots of people have been saying similar things for a long time. Ad
> hominem attacks don't change the fact that the message is right. You
> could start here : http://adactio.com/journal/1357 .
So let's say Scoble is right. How, in fact, does OAuth prevent a bad
actor from using credentials to act badly?
OAuth solves many problems; it doesn't solve this one.
--
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-- BOND THEME NOW PLAYING: "The Man With the Golden Gun" ----------------------
Ed Finkler
> Whilst there's an element of truth in your statement (just about all
> of the prominent tech bloggers remain prominent by stirring up drama),
> lots of people have been saying similar things for a long time. Ad
> hominem attacks don't change the fact that the message is right. You
> could start here : http://adactio.com/journal/1357 .
Agreed, and that's a much better source.
>
> I think we all understand, however, that the twitter engineering team
> first needed to make twitter stable before they could add features
> like this one. Now that they've largely done that, it appears they're
> responding to demand for features like this one, which is great news.
Yep. So not really a lot of point in continuing the "oh boy, this is a
big problem! thing, I think, when they're on it and have given many
updates here recently." That's not a criticism of you in particular,
but of folks who apparently don't search the archives before posting
something along the lines of "Scoble said this is a big deal, so you'd
better do it!" It doesn't help in any way.
Ed Finkler
> So let's say Scoble is right. How, in fact, does OAuth prevent a bad
> actor from using credentials to act badly?
>
> OAuth solves many problems; it doesn't solve this one.
And this.
Jesse Stay
I think it's getting more urgent day by day:
http://scobleizer.com/2009/01/01/twitter-warning-your-data-is-being-sold/
Richie
http://twitter.com/RMetzler
It's true, OAuth doesn't really solve this problem, but the general public thinks it does. Having some solution is better than none, and sometimes the feeling of security is better for marketing apps than no security at all. I'd say the attention it's getting, and an entire app with open-text passwords being sold to a third party (which, who knows - maybe next time it's a spammer???) for a small price makes this pretty dang urgent.
Jesse
Cameron Kaiser
>
> It's true, OAuth doesn't really solve this problem, but the general public
> thinks it does. Having some solution is better than none, and sometimes the
> feeling of security is better for marketing apps than no security at all.
Maybe for apps, but not for users. A user that thinks he's secure and is
not is far worse off than a user who's insecure and knows he isn't. If this
makes people think about who they give credentials to -- OAuth or no -- then
the experience will be a painful but useful lesson.
--
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-- BOND THEME NOW PLAYING: "The World is Not Enough" --------------------------
Mark Ng
> So let's say Scoble is right. How, in fact, does OAuth prevent a bad
> actor from using credentials to act badly?
>
> OAuth solves many problems; it doesn't solve this one.
There are several problems to be solved, though.
The first is a malicious actor with access to a single system (in this
case, twitter) spamming. OAuth doesn't solve the problem of someone
using an account to spam using messages from that user (unless that
app doesn't need to message, and twitters OAuth implementation has
granular permissions).
The second is a malicious actor with access to a single system gaining
control of other systems that user has access to because they've used
the same username and/or password. Whilst this is bad practice on the
part of the user, we'd be silly to pretend that this isn't a large
problem. OAuth *does* solve that problem, which is one of the
problems in this scenario.
The third is a malicious actor with access to a single system locking
the user out of their own account (by changing their password) and
claiming the account for themselves (which has been known to happen
with gmail accounts, for example). Twitter, so far as I'm aware,
doesn't allow changes of passwords via the API, and I would assume
that an OAuth implementation would only allow access to the API, and
not the web interface. Even were these things not the case, it
wouldn't make sense to allow an OAuth client to change the user
password. So OAuth does solve this problem, also.
Mark
Cameron Kaiser
> > actor from using credentials to act badly?
> >
> > OAuth solves many problems; it doesn't solve this one.
>
> There are several problems to be solved, though.
Clearly. But the point I'm making is that *this* particular situation isn't
solved by OAuth. You're absolutely right about the rest of the similar
issues it *does* improve -- no one is contesting OAuth's utility -- but it
wouldn't help this particular hypothetical situation.
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-- Friends don't let friends use Windows. -------------------------------------
Chris Messina
>
> It's true, OAuth doesn't really solve this problem, but the general public
> thinks it does.
With OAuth you can turn off a particular token, blocking a *specific*
application (i.e. Twply).
It doesn't prevent bad actors from behaving badly, but it does given
provide a pathway to give users more control over third-party access
to their account.
I'm not really sure why Twply needed a user's Twitter credentials in
the first place (but boy, they sure are easy to ask for!), but I
imagine it helps with getting private @replies (which search alone
won't give you).
In that case, Twitter could make it possible, like Flickr does, to
enable a third-party app to request certain permissions -- in this
case, a user's reply stream -- and nothing more.
So I disagree that OAuth doesn't solve this problem. At the bare
minimum it minimizes the scope of the inconvenience of needing to
change your Twitter password (and then changing it in all the other
Twitter apps that you use).
Chris
Jesse Stay
Actually, it does.
On Jan 2, 11:06 am, "Jesse Stay" <jesses...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It's true, OAuth doesn't really solve this problem, but the general public
> thinks it does.
With OAuth you can turn off a particular token, blocking a *specific*
application (i.e. Twply).
It doesn't prevent bad actors from behaving badly, but it does given
provide a pathway to give users more control over third-party access
to their account.
Well put Chris - I had forgotten about that. I just want something - I don't care what, but I need it soon, as it's starting to make it really difficult to market my App and keep users feeling secure. I *hate* knowing my users Twitter passwords (I have over 5,000 of them - it's really scary that I do). I sincerely hope this is top priority for Twitter right now - it should have been implemented last year so long as they have an API in place. On my App, it took about 2 hours max to write, test, and implement a very simple API key system like this for the API I'm providing. I don't get why it's taking Twitter so long.
Jesse
Ed Finkler
bad form to assume your own experience mirrors others' experience when
doing a similar type of activity. Generally leads to incorrect
assumptions.
If you don't like what your application does, or find it hard to do
what you want, I might also suggest that you developed your
application at the wrong time. Making financial commitments that rely
on a service which you have no agreement to level or service seems
like a bad idea.
--
Ed Finkler
http://funkatron.com
AIM: funka7ron
ICQ: 3922133
Skype: funka7ron
Ed Finkler
Jesse Stay
Whether its writing books or developing applications, it's typically
bad form to assume your own experience mirrors others' experience when
doing a similar type of activity. Generally leads to incorrect
assumptions.
If you don't like what your application does, or find it hard to do
what you want, I might also suggest that you developed your
application at the wrong time. Making financial commitments that rely
on a service which you have no agreement to level or service seems
like a bad idea.
So I guess all us developers just give up? The fact is plain text passwords are part of the API, and the only way to write apps. Twitter hasn't removed that from the API, so it's the only way to write apps right now. People aren't going to stop doing that, and that's a huge issue.
It's very easy to do what I want to do. I like what my application does. I don't like how Twitter is making me do it though. I'm up for a boycott if you can convince my competitors to do so as well - good luck with that.
Jesse
Ed Finkler
Sent from my drmPhone
Chris Messina
> Well put Chris - I had forgotten about that. I just want something - I
> don't care what, but I need it soon, as it's starting to make it really
> difficult to market my App and keep users feeling secure. I *hate* knowing
> my users Twitter passwords (I have over 5,000 of them - it's really scary
> that I do). I sincerely hope this is top priority for Twitter right now -
> it should have been implemented last year so long as they have an API in
> place. On my App, it took about 2 hours max to write, test, and implement a
> very simple API key system like this for the API I'm providing. I don't get
> why it's taking Twitter so long.
subject:
"The plan is to support Basic Auth and OAuth concurrently, for at
least 6 months, if not more.
"We can’t completely turn off the Basic Auth API without having a
large impact to many APIs and clients."
http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/01/02/twitter-and-the-password-anti-pattern/comment-page-1/#comment-103431
So, you will be given an option (no telling when) to use OAuth instead
of the plaintext username/password combo.
Of course it means many folks will still use the lowest common
denominator (and the most insecure method available) for some time,
but at least there will be a good transitional time period where
developers who want to use OAuth can do so, paving a path for those
who will need to migrate later.
Heck if Flickr could get its user base to move over to Yahoo accounts,
I imagine Twitter will be able to get app developers and users to move
over to OAuth in six months.
Chris
Alex Payne
to OAuth. The next major version of the API will be OAuth-only, for
example.
Of course, once we offer OAuth, it would be nice to see the same
community pressure that's been applied to us put towards companies
like Amazon. The Amazon.com iPhone app collects my username and
password, and that account is actually tied to my credit card
information. Where are the blog posts about their anti-patterns?
--
Cameron Kaiser
> to OAuth. The next major version of the API will be OAuth-only, for
> example.
This is where I get antsy, and maybe Chris can point out some ways to deal
with this, but from my perspective as a desktop client author OAuth is a
lot of hurt without a lot of benefit to me the developer (other than "it's
the only way in so love it or lump it"), and I think even the user's benefits
are nebulous. If you don't trust an application, you shouldn't be running it.
Isn't that where Trojan horses come in?
But let's say that there is (a) good reason for a desktop application to use
OAuth as its primary method; now I have a technical question. The way I'm
reading
is that I go and get a request token (A.2), but I need to redirect a user to
a service provider's login page (ouch) for her to authorize that token (A.3),
then provide a callback URL (double ouch) (A.3). At best this is turning my
application into not only a Twitter client, but also a web server (to accept
the callback). At worst this isn't possible because the Service provider
*can't* call me back due to network restrictions on the desktop machine.
Also, since TTYtter is text based, I *really* don't want to be opening up a
browser to get logins (or if I do, I want it to be Lynx, and fat chance I bet).
Clearly OAuth is the way to go for standalone web sites talking to Twitter,
but I get nervous about hearing OAuth will be the only method of access while
trying to work through the issues unique to a desktop client. I would
appreciate hearing from someone knowledgeable about the best way to overcome
these issues, or if there is a special way that I missed where an application
can authenticate itself by just asking the user for their OAuth credentials
and proxy everything to the service provider, which would also suck, but less,
from a developer standpoint. (But that would also probably defeat the purpose
of OAuth.)
--
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-- Blanket statements are always wrong. ---------------------------------------
Alex Payne
handle an auth system that's very similar to OAuth. It does often
involve bouncing to the browser, but that's the intended workflow.
--
Cameron Kaiser
> handle an auth system that's very similar to OAuth. It does often
> involve bouncing to the browser, but that's the intended workflow.
That's what I mean. This would definitely be UX hurt for a standalone
application, and it still doesn't solve the callback problem. Chris?
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Cameron Kaiser
> > handle an auth system that's very similar to OAuth. It does often
> > involve bouncing to the browser, but that's the intended workflow.
>
> That's what I mean. This would definitely be UX hurt for a standalone
> application, and it still doesn't solve the callback problem. Chris?
And one more followup is how Google tried to deal with this, which I just
found. Some of these issues would be very difficult to overcome in practice.
http://sites.google.com/site/oauthgoog/UXFedLogin/desktopapps
--
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-- When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- Hunter S. Thompson -------
Ed Finkler
API apps. I think those are the most problematic security-wise, and
with all due respect to people who have developed these web-based apps
that require Twitter authentication credentials, that they are doing a
disservice to their users by training them to get phished. Also, had
the opportunity to audit many web sites in my day, and I've examined
the practices of several web apps that utilize Twitter user
credentials, and my overall impression is that the vast majority of
people making these apps have little or no awareness of the security
issues they face, or how to address them.
Were I king of Twitter, I would have banned any 3rd-party web sites
that request usernames and passwords. Lucky for you, I'm not in charge
8D.
The security expectations are different for desktop apps, I think.
Users understand the potential for malicious applications on the
desktop better, and that's why I never had a problem asking for a
username and password in Spaz, as long as I always communicated over
SSL, and stored the password locally in an encrypted format. Desktop
apps are typically not open to as many easy-to-execute attacks that
would allow for stealing of credentials as web apps. So, I feel
comfortable with desktop apps requesting usernames and passwords. I
also think that throwing the OAuth authorization squaredance would
indeed be a hassle that will confuse most users – maybe not as much as
OpenID does, but something that definitely will require a lot more
hand-holding and explanation on the part of app devs.
However, I don't know if it's reasonable or even possible to make a
distinction between web apps and desktop apps for the purposes of
authentication type. I suspect it is not.
OAuth does offer some wins over username/password exchange. As I
understand it (mostly from my experience with Flickr), these include:
- more granularity over authorization: an application can just request
read access, for example
- no password sharing required: many (most?) users will duplicate
usernames and passwords across various accounts. OAuth limits the
potential damage (although you could see some interesting information
assurance problems with Twitter accounts that feed other systems).
- A malicious app can be blocked system-wide (after being identified as such)
- A malicious app can be blocked from an account without changing that
account's username and pass (after being identified as such)
All that being said, *I will bet you dollars for donuts that you'll
see successful phishing attacks via OAuth*. In fact, you might even
see *more* successful attacks, because for as many folks who have
ill-advisedly entered their Twitter credentials into a 3rd-party site
to get an ego-stroke, I suspect that *more* will click a button that
says "give this application permission," no matter what permissions
are being requested.
Those who expect OAuth to be a panacea for identity theft on Twitter
simply don't understand the issues involved. Operating a modern
computer involves a lot of trust - trusting applications you run on
your machine, trusting web sites you set up accounts on, and the like.
And when you trust, there's always the potential for getting burned.
OAuth doesn't change that fundamentally.
In addition, OAuth or no, what makes us think classic phishing attacks
that collect Twitter usernames and passwords will stop? Remember,
*most Twitter users use the web site or SMS* and therefore may have
*no* interaction with the OAuth system -- all they ever do is enter a
username and password. And even for folks who *do* have experience
with the OAuth system, I'd expect that without extensive training,
they'd still be likely to fall for classic phishing attacks.
As a side note, I wonder if Twitter API dev would have taken off as it
did if OAuth was required from the start. I believe that using HTTP
Basic Auth was a key to making API dev as accessible as possible.
--
Ed Finkler
http://funkatron.com
AIM: funka7ron
ICQ: 3922133
Skype: funka7ron
Lachlan Hardy
Those who expect OAuth to be a panacea for identity theft on Twitter
simply don't understand the issues involved. Operating a modern
computer involves a lot of trust - trusting applications you run on
your machine, trusting web sites you set up accounts on, and the like.
And when you trust, there's always the potential for getting burned.
OAuth doesn't change that fundamentally.
I agree completely with your post, Ed. I put forward my thoughts on OAuth and phishing in April last year: http://log.lachstock.com.au/past/2008/4/1/phishing-fools/
Basically, I think OAuth is awesome, but the idea that it's going to somehow stop phishing is extreme.
Lachlan Hardy
Jesse Stay
Ed Finkler
> On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 5:20 PM, Lachlan Hardy <lac...@lachstock.com.au>
> wrote:
>>
>>> Those who expect OAuth to be a panacea for identity theft on Twitter
>>> simply don't understand the issues involved. Operating a modern
>>> computer involves a lot of trust - trusting applications you run on
>>> your machine, trusting web sites you set up accounts on, and the like.
>>> And when you trust, there's always the potential for getting burned.
>>> OAuth doesn't change that fundamentally.
>>
>> I agree completely with your post, Ed. I put forward my thoughts on OAuth
>> and phishing in April last year:
>> http://log.lachstock.com.au/past/2008/4/1/phishing-fools/
>>
>> Basically, I think OAuth is awesome, but the idea that it's going to
>> somehow stop phishing is extreme.
>
> I don't get how it won't help fight phishing. Right now the worm is being
> spread via an App.
Help us out here with what "worm" you mean -- there are lots of them 8)
> (if it's not, then Twitter really needs a Captcha on the
> Twitter login page) At the moment all Twitter can do is chase down IPs to
> kill the App.
Sure.
> With OAuth it would be as simple as killing the API key
> itself and the worm would be dead.
If the malicious application uses OAuth via Twitter, yes.
> Could they go in and create another one?
> Probably, but it makes it a whole lot harder for someone to create such a
> worm. This is the reason most of the Facebook worms right now are spreading
> through simple screen scraping and not the App platform. It's too much work
> to do it on the App platform there because Facebook would just shut you down
> each time their alarms went off.
I'd note that it used to be too much work to spam Google Groups
because of CAPTCHAs too, but almost all CAPTCHAs can be defeated now
programatically and via mechanical turk-style attacks. I and a few
others have to review posts from all new users for this reason.
Also, why do you assume that phishing attacks would have to come via
Twitter messages, though? Most come via email or web content on other
sites. Twitter currently uses email notifications for several events
-- faking those would be quite easy to do, for example.
OAuth may have mitigated (not blocked) *one* particular worm that was
sending messages directing people to a phishing site. And yes,
removing everyone's shoes does stop the shoe bombing attack. Whether
or not this actually makes you *safer* is something we should very
carefully consider. Personally, I'd say it helps, but only a little --
far less than most of our Thought Leaders claim.
Jesse Stay
OAuth may have mitigated (not blocked) *one* particular worm that wassending messages directing people to a phishing site. And yes,
removing everyone's shoes does stop the shoe bombing attack. Whether
or not this actually makes you *safer* is something we should very
carefully consider. Personally, I'd say it helps, but only a little --
far less than most of our Thought Leaders claim.
Ed Finkler
> So what do *you* recommend Ed (that goes for everyone that is criticizing
> OAuth, including Alex)? I see a lot of criticism against OAuth, but I see no
> suggestions for a solution.
Perhaps you're mistaking criticism with an attempt to make for
realistic expectations, and temper an artificial urgency.
Generally I think OAuth is a Good Idea, and I think it's probably a
good step for Twitter to take. I think I can say Alex agrees, or he
and the rest of the API team wouldn't be implementing it.
It's not really my job to tell Twitter what to do – first off, I think
they have people with very good security backgrounds in place, and
secondly I'm not on their payroll. But if you actually want to hear a
few things, I'll toss them out. I don't have time or motiviation atm
for a lot of detail (we just lost a family friend tonight to cancer),
but I'm happy to talk about them another day in detail if you want.
- immediately cease the development of any web-based applications that
require user credentials. I generally don't think that you're keeping
your user's best interests in mind when you do this.
- educate users about risk acceptance: what it means to trust a web
application with your credentials (or OAuth permissions), and what the
consequences could be if trust is broken.
- educate users about how to identify phishing attacks
- possibly implement some personal site ID techniques on the Twitter
homepage, like user-chosen identifier images
Even if you do a great job on all of these, though, you will always
have some people who fall for it.
> Right now, I think it's a step in the right
> direction - I see a lot of theories here, but not a lot of urgency to fix
> the problem. As I said, I don't care what the solution is - I just need
> something, other than requiring my users to enter their plain text usernames
> and passwords. There's huge urgency here - what's the solution to the
> problem?
There is no solution.
Really. There isn't. People who work in security will tell you this.
The security industry spends millions and millions of dollars on
application trust issues, and there is no solution. There are things
you can do, but you can't "solve" the problem. You can only *mitigate*
risk.
People clamoring for OAuth -- this is the urgency you refer to -- are
participating in security theater. They want it implemented not
because it will make things a little better, but because they have
been whipped up into a frenzy by ye olde Thought Leaders and want
*something* to be done. I was completely serious about my shoe bomb
analogy, because it's a classic security theater – "oh shit, you could
put a bomb in your shoe! better check everyone's shoes!" It's a
temporary PR fix, but it doesn't solve the problem other than making
people feel better -- until the next security flavor of the week comes
around.
If you seriously want to study this kind of thing further, I think
starting off with Schneier's "Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About
Security in an Uncertain World" would be a good idea. As a developer,
you should also dig into all the security info you can, and make
security a first-level concern. If you're a PHP dev (I know a lot of
folks here are), I'd probably start out with Chris Shiflett's
"Essential PHP Security." Rails devs should keep an eye on
http://www.rorsecurity.info/.
Lon Koenig
As a developer of twitter-related utilities, I don't want to store my
user's twitter credentials.
As has been stated in this thread, even asking for those credentials
is creating bad habits amongst Twitter's user base.
I would never store a user's password for MY site in cleartext, yet
the current API requires me to retrieve an unencrypted credential for
twitter access.
OAuth won't solve identity security issues. I'm not hoping to fix
Twitter's security - just my own practices.
The current pressure Twitter is getting is obviously from users who
have unrealistic expectations about what a new credential system will
mean.
But, in spite of the uninformed panic, there really is an urgent need
for this.