The security key designed for cross-platform authentication by FEITIAN
In my last post, I reviewed FEITIAN’s biometrics based security key — the BioPass FIDO2.
In this post, I will be reviewing another security key from FETIAN: iePass FIDO.
The iePass FIDO is a nifty security key that sports a Lightning connector and a USB Type C port.
Here’s what we will cover:
- Some basics about the key
- Setting up and using the iePass FIDO
- Managing the iePass FIDO
- Hardware
- User Education
- Conclusion
The Basics
- FIDO2 Certified
- MFi Certified: MFi certification stands for Made for iPhone/iPod/iPad. It’s a stringent program that producers of accessories for those devices must go through to have…
An Antidote to Existential Crisis
What should I do with my life? What is my passion? What is the meaning of my existence? What is my calling?
These are variations of The Question: ‘What is the purpose of life?’
Many of us struggle to find an answer to this question. But before we subject ourselves to this grueling struggle, we should question The Question. Are we even asking the right question?
Problems with Purpose
Purpose is a philosophical concept, not a scientific one. There is no empirical data to conduct a study and arrive at a scientific prescription for Life. It is non-deterministic. …
Thoughts on a security key by FEITIAN that sports a fingerprint reader
BioPass FIDO2 is a security key from FEITIAN Technologies. If you are wondering what the hell a ‘security key’ is, you can read this article where I cover the basics of FIDO2 — the protocol that security keys run on.
In a nutshell, security keys leverage the power of Public Key Cryptography in order to secure your online accounts far better than passwords and authenticator apps (ex: Google authenticator) ever can. They provide protection against phishing, man-in-the-middle attacks and hijacking.
BioPass comes in two variants: USB-A and USB-C. In this article, I will be sharing my thoughts on the USB-A…
Fighting stage fear with antifragility and self deprecation
Shopify, an ecommerce platform, is considered to be one of the fastest growing internet companies in the world today.
They have 1 million businesses using their platform across 175 countries¹. How does Shopify keep their customers satisfied? One of the things they do is to optimize for trust. Here is Shopify’s CEO Tobi Lütke²:
We’ve designed Shopify very well because resilience and uptime are so important for building trust.
How does he ensure servers that are critical to Shopify are always up and running? By shutting down those critical servers.
I would just log in and shut down various servers…
What they are and how you can go about discovering them
I was introduced to the concept of unknown unknowns by this quote¹:
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns- the ones we don’t know we don’t know.
- Donald Rumsfeld
Intrigued? Let us deconstruct it.
What are Unknown Unknowns?
Known knowns are things like using a smartphone — you know that you know how to use a smartphone.
Known knowns are meh. You already know what you know. You are not missing out…
The basics, the challenges and tips to overcome them
There are plenty of articles on why one should go passwordless. I will not reinvent the wheel here. You can check this article for a primer. For those of you who are lazy to click on the link, here is an over-simplified summary:
What I hope to do with this article is to talk about how FIDO2 works and other things to keep in mind on your journey towards a passwordless enterprise.
The Basics
Protocols
A rant on why birthdays are overrated
I don't think I need to explain why a birthday gets everyone excited. Everyone knows that already.
Let me directly get to why I think the concept of celebrating birthdays is overrated.
It’s not about you
Typically, birthdays are a celebration of you being born into this world. It is about you. Should it be about you, though?
You barely did anything. Your biological mom did all the heavy lifting (with or without the help of doctors). It is she who had to go through 9+ months of struggle and mood swings and cravings and what not, culminating in a grand event where you…
Why you should stop worrying about it and what you can do to ensure it does not stay ugly
Lately, many people that I have interacted with seem to be worried about the negative consequences of social media. Many are quick to jump to the conclusion that social media is going to usher us into a dystopian future. Well, that is not likely to happen because we can still do something about it.
Social media is, unarguably, very powerful. As Naval said on the Joe Rogan Podcast (I am paraphrasing a bit here):
The people writing the algorithms for social media and content curation platforms like Twitter, FB, Google etc are the most powerful people on the planet because…
Why dumping Google Chrome helped my internet surfing attain freedom
I switched to Firefox after having been a Chrome user for the longest time and I have not looked back since.
I typically have a minimum of 30 tabs open at any given time. Undoubtedly, it made Chrome go crazy and consume insane amounts of RAM. Chrome had company, though. I was going crazy too thanks to horizontally arranged tabs. Horizontally arranged tabs are the dumbest thing ever but I will save my rant on this topic for later. Nonetheless, this was one of the primary reasons that drove me to Firefox and holy hell, Firefox is awesome! …
Is a dedicated password management app better than a browser based password manager?
Ah, passwords. One of the most necessary but annoying creations of humankind. If you want to set a strong, unique password for each website, you risk forgetting them, leading to frequent password resets. It comes in your way and you lose time and energy resetting your password. Contrarily, if you want a hassle-free experience, you are better off remembering just that one password that is made up of your birth date and your pet’s name, and reusing them across all the websites. These can be easily cracked with a little bit of social engineering and dictionary attack — exactly like…
Raghul Chandrasekar
Trying to learn something about everything and everything about something
