Re: Giving up on Fedora 9

["Matthew Gillen" <user=50@nabble.blu.org>]

 Kent Borg wrote: 
> I see periodic recommendations about passwords that say not to use 
> passwords because a nice long ssh key is much more secure.  Am I silly 
> to be as worried as I am by logins via key files? 
> 
> Currently I login with passwords that are secure*, and I don't type them 
> on keyboards I don't trust (therefore I don't type personal passwords on 
> my Windows machine at work).  Keyfiles, on the other hand, need to be 
> stored in plain text on the authorized machine.  That gives me the 
> willies.  Should it? 

Only if you're also using "passphrase-less" keys.  Supposing you use a key 
that is as secure as your passwords are (and treat your key passphrase exactly 
like you treat your current password), then you have two factor 
authentication, and it is more secure.  Now they have "have" something (your 
key), and "know" something (your passphrase).  That's generally thought to be 
more secure than just a password (especially since it's completely infeasible 
to discover the key by brute-force). 

Matt 

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