Forgiva

Security and privacy

password manager

SHOW HN2016

97points
96comments
#391of 2,264 in 2016
Top 18%of 2016 by points

How HN took it

RoastedHalf or more of the comments are critical

1 positive, 23 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 30 critical, out of 55 comments about the project. Thread score -0.54.

Idea: 1 for, 8 againstExecution: 0 for, 6 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 6 againstPerformance: 0 for, 4 againstDocs: 0 for, 3 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Interesting idea of regenerating passwords instead of storing them

    From 2 comments
    • Ok, cool that you can access it anywhere.
      SNvD7vEJ on HN
    • Seems like a really cool idea, as long as the password generator can be proved to be hard enough to break. How long does the retrieval of a password take? Sub-second? 10 seconds?
      SNvD7vEJ on HN

Objections

  • Deterministic generation is not safer than an encrypted password database

    From 3 comments
    • As I see it, the main benefit of deterministic password generation is the convenience of not needing a password database. Indeed, if the scheme is simple and/or portable enough…
      SloopJon on HN
    • As an end user, I don't care about how the passwords are stored. I care mostly about two things: 1. How hard it is for someone to steal them 2. How easy they are to retrieve when…
      blowski on HN
    • Your password will never be secure when you store it on someone else his disk or let someone else encrypt your password. Its not a matter of how, but when there will be a way to…
      SpendBig on HN
  • Password generation is too slow for practical use

    From 3 comments
    • Cool idea, but the main gripe I have with it is that the passwords it generates are clearly not made for remembering, but regenerating them takes multiple seconds.
      Fightback on HN
    • These security experts forgot one really important thing: usability. I'm not going to wait minutes for one password to generate!
      Walkman on HN
    • Seems like a really cool idea, as long as the password generator can be proved to be hard enough to break. How long does the retrieval of a password take? Sub-second? 10 seconds?
      SNvD7vEJ on HN
  • Changing passwords and site rules are unclear or unsupported

    From 2 comments
    • What happens then if you want/need to rotate your password? How does it deal with stupid password format restrictions?
      cauterized on HN
    • How does this handle situations where the generated password isn't accepted by the site? eg. Is too long, absolutely must have at least one symbol and one number, etc. How does…
      Canada on HN
  • Closed-source or non-open licensing with unclear security audit

    From 3 comments
    • How does this compare to the KeePass family of pw-managers? (Besides that Forgiva is closed source and KeePass is open source.) Fixes poor passwords, accessibility and storage…
      SNvD7vEJ on HN
    • NC licenses aren't considered "Open Source": http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd
      mynameislegion on HN
    • As an end user, I don't care about how the passwords are stored. I care mostly about two things: 1. How hard it is for someone to steal them 2. How easy they are to retrieve when…
      blowski on HN
  • Installer signature fails on Windows due to SHA1

    From 1 comment
    • The Windows 64-bit installer is giving a bad signature even though its SHA256 installer hash appears to be correct. It looks like they used SHA1 checks in the installer. I…
      KirinDave on HN

Requests

  • Publish a roadmap and security audit

    From 1 comment
    • As an end user, I don't care about how the passwords are stored. I care mostly about two things: 1. How hard it is for someone to steal them 2. How easy they are to retrieve when…
      blowski on HN
  • Add mobile apps

    From 1 comment
  • Support shared team folders

    From 1 comment
  • Use stronger KDFs such as scrypt or argon2

    From 2 comments
    • As I see it, the main benefit of deterministic password generation is the convenience of not needing a password database. Indeed, if the scheme is simple and/or portable enough…
      SloopJon on HN
    • >> What does password complexity have to do with the strength of the algorithm used to generate passwords? It is not the algorithm only but if you can look a little bit more…
      marcusfrex on HN

Questions

  • How is password rotation handled

    From 2 comments
    • What happens then if you want/need to rotate your password? How does it deal with stupid password format restrictions?
      cauterized on HN
    • How does this handle situations where the generated password isn't accepted by the site? eg. Is too long, absolutely must have at least one symbol and one number, etc. How does…
      Canada on HN
  • How does it compare to Master Password and KeePass

    From 2 comments
    • How does this compare to the KeePass family of pw-managers? (Besides that Forgiva is closed source and KeePass is open source.) Fixes poor passwords, accessibility and storage…
      SNvD7vEJ on HN
    • This is similar to masterpassword . They have a mobile app and desktop app . Moreover they are completely free . http://masterpasswordapp.com/
      nautical on HN

Alternatives named

  • Master Password

    From 2 comments
    • This is similar to masterpassword . They have a mobile app and desktop app . Moreover they are completely free . http://masterpasswordapp.com/
      nautical on HN
    • This seems similar to Master Password (http://masterpasswordapp.com/).
      boot13 on HN
  • KeePass

    From 1 comment
    • How does this compare to the KeePass family of pw-managers? (Besides that Forgiva is closed source and KeePass is open source.) Fixes poor passwords, accessibility and storage…
      SNvD7vEJ on HN
  • 1Password

    From 1 comment
    • As an end user, I don't care about how the passwords are stored. I care mostly about two things: 1. How hard it is for someone to steal them 2. How easy they are to retrieve when…
      blowski on HN
  • getvau.lt

    From 1 comment

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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