TOTP

[Deleted User]
[Deleted User]
Community Member

OK, exactly what is this thing and exactly how does it work? Thanks

Comments

  • Stephen_C
    Stephen_C
    Community Member

    Start with this knowledge base article and follow the relevant links in it. Bear in mind at the moment this is relevant only to 1P for iOS and not 1P for Mac.

    Stephen

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    Community Member

    WOW, you guys are just a wealth of information. OK, very interesting. Now on a Mac, you do not have a touch screen or a QR code reader. So what will happen (if you are free to tell :-))? From my point of view it sure seems like a lot of work for not a lot of benefit. Back in the days when I had a smartphone, I tried Semantic Versign app for doing much the same thing. Way too much trouble, always had to have the phone with you. Now without a smartphone handy, just the old username and password seem more than adequate. This probably is a good idea in those cases that you mentioned about insecure networks and weak passwords. Just as long as sites do not make it mandatory. Still, from my very little understanding, not the same as real two step verification (login using username and password, get a code sent back and enter that code.)

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @Steve_H

    I'm not that experienced with TOTP but the few times I've seen it so far it has always been optional. I'm sure there is a way to import and read a QR code on a Mac but given it's just a particular format for the secret, as long as the site offers another option to the QR code we wouldn't even need to worry about that. I'm not sure what disadvantage not having a touch screen has though?

  • KevinSayHi
    KevinSayHi
    Community Member
    edited February 2015

    QR code isn't magic, and certainly doesn't need a smartphone to read. When your smartphone reads a QR code, what it actually does is to take a picture and process it with some QR code image processing library (e.g., ZXing) to extract the data. Therefore, processing QR code on your Mac is as easy as taking a screenshot and process the image with similar libraries. In particular, why is "touch screen" any help?

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    I'm no programmer and don't know the specifics about Apple's sandboxing but I wonder if when we do QR codes we'll be able to pull the QR image direct from the web page (it's already downloaded it to display it) and then process it.

    Still unsure about the touchscreen part like @KevinSayHi

  • KevinSayHi
    KevinSayHi
    Community Member

    @littlebobbytables

    I'm no programmer and don't know the specifics about Apple's sandboxing but I wonder if when we do QR codes we'll be able to pull the QR image direct from the web page (it's already downloaded it to display it) and then process it.

    I don't write Cocoa programs so I'm not sure about the specifics of sandboxing either, but since there are a host of screen capture apps available on the App Store, it must be possible for 1Password to perform a screen capture. Also, a browser extension should be able to access the image (depending on how QR codes are embedded on different websites, it might be hard to devise a universal extraction algorithm, though).

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    I guess we'll have to wait and see what goodies the Mac devs come up for us to play to with :smile:

This discussion has been closed.