The God Login

Thats freakin awesome :smile:

Looks good Jeff.
Some other things I think might be mentioning.

SSL the whole page, not just the login form/frame. That seems to be a common mistake among these new SPAs and ajaxy sites.
Edit: Just noticed… uhh Jeff we need to talk…

Lockout notification emails are an empowering way to protect your users from robot ninja attacks. If you suspect robots are trying to login, making them wait is meh~ You have the user’s email address. Don’t you think that, if you suspect that something fishy may be going on, its worthwhile to alert the user?

It does no harm to lock an account if unlocking it is easy and you’re proactive about it. I make 3 (which is unnecessarily low, so lets say 5) 5 failed attempts, go ahead and lock it, tell me you’ve locked it, and that an SMS/email token is inbound. And I can use that token to immediately unlock the account, and the login form has automatically presented that workflow, no clicks necessary.

But don’t assume it was me that tried to login, it could have been a cyborg pirate, so along with the token in the SMS/email, explain what has happened.

"If this wasn’t you trying to log in, reply “NOT ME” to secure your account."
SMS is the most effective way of alerting the user in a timely manner. People check their texts waaaaaay more than they check their email.

So if you wanted to be very brief: “discourse.site.com security notification - too many login attempts. Check email for details. Unlock token: 5K9X3”

Also thank you for testing password fields, so many sites that don’t make it a pain to use lastpass.

I was with you until you said to tell the user that their e-mail address doesn’t exist. When you do that, it generates an undesirable side effect which you never address:

I can now enumerate your user database with ease, and in the process I have an email I can use to contact (read Phish) that user

This is the reason that so many security standards actually prohibit this behavior; we used to do it all the time, and it made the lives of attackers much easier.

The better solution is to provide a method for people to recover their username if they suspect they’ve forgotten. One good way is to email them a “hey, you don’t have an account here” message using the incorrect email they supplied (only do this once per day, please). This provides nothing to an attacker, but:

  1. helps a user who may have forgotten which email they used (you can provide help text in the error to prompt them to check their email)
  2. tips off a user that someone might be trying to attack their account using a related breach/etc.

Yea, I actually planned on making a chrome extension for that, but its a bit too hard…

I have the same problem, I’m using my basic password and adding numbers or symbols based on the sits requirements, so many times I’m resetting my password just cuz I forgot the password requirements on this site, if it would be a small tooltip with a message “hey, password requirements are …” It would be much easier to recall my password…

I think this should definitely be something to consider when creating a log in form.

The “don’t forget the keyboard” topic made me laugh, I have a client that works with DreamHost, and I get frustrated every time I log in to his DH’s panel, user TAB pass TAB enter takes you to Remember your account, sigh. Good article and thanks for the Randy’s video, inspirational.

Al

I can now enumerate your user database with ease, and in the process I have an email I can use to contact (read Phish) that user

A delay between allowed password reset requests (say, 1s per IP) should remediate this. (And if you are enumerating against a number of known emails, what prevents you from phishing them anyways).

Otherwise, you are forcing the users to check all their email accounts before they can find out which one they used, consider how much trouble it is on a mobile device.

I’m not sure if the double-password box for confirmation is necessary or preferable anymore. I use a bigass password so I guess it’s possible I’ll make a typo, but then I can just reset my password if I can’t log in. It’s inconvenient to occasionally have to do that, but it’s always inconvenient to have to enter my password twice when I sign up. Have you ever just copied and pasted in a verification field for email or password just because you didn’t care (email is a bad example because it would screw up where reset information is sent)?

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The only issue I think you missed is the dreaded “COPPA” law in the United States. It is a horror for sites that exist for children under the age of 13 when it comes to collecting identifying information for authentication. According to the updated regulations, as of July 1, 2013, you are not allowed to capture email addresses, IP addresses, nor any demographic (age, race, address, phone, etc.) data about children 12 years old or younger.

My company runs multiple web sites for games targeted at children ages 8+. So our login systems needed to be both simple, and comply with the COPPA regulations. Hence, we cannot collect an email address until the user makes a purchase with a credit card (COPPA literally specifies this as one of 5 ways we can verify that a child has the consent of their parents to access our site). This may be why some sites do not allow an email address for logins (it is for us).

BTW, the result of this law for our site is - if you forget your password (and you are under 13), you are essentially screwed unless you’ve made a credit card purchase that we can trace back to you.

I’d love to hear suggestions from anyone else on how to compensate for the limitations imposed by the regulations.

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This behaviour has been in fact proposed as the basis for a no-password authentication alternative.

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So, not ‘El Duderino’, then. Got it.

What if people type it in wrong… twice?

Except that banks are more likely to have strict rules about what can be in a password. So if you have a bad password on MyChatSite.example.com (e.g. “password”) and that get hacked, it’s not useful for hacking into other sites. Whereas if you are forced to use a good password on MyChatSite.example.com, it is more likely to be your password at a bank website.

That said, it’s bad form to allow any password, since it trains users to try using a weak password.

On the third hand (as it were), password security is broken already. As another person commented, even if you’re using bcrypt or scrypt, if the password file gets stolen, an attacker will be able to guess a user’s password soon enough, since users aren’t good at coming up with good passwords. We really need to move away from passwords and toward a different security model.

This post inspired me to finally release the code for my How Secure is My Password? site so that people can use it on their own sites. Thanks!

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OK, so now my botnet (everybody’s got one of those, right?) can enumerate your database with ease. I don’t think anybody is saying it’s a one-sided discussion, and never OK, but it’s definitely a trade-off between security and convenience.

Awesome! But can anyone show me the coding of it or How to create it perfectly? I want to create it for my blog: Android Rooting

Great article. Two additions, if I may:

  1. if I failed to login with email+pass, when I hit ‘forgot password’ remember the last email I typed.
  2. Remember which sign in method I used on this device. Don’t even hint the username if you want to respect my privacy, but I believe noting that ‘Twitter & GitHub were used to access this site from this device’ is very useful.

Why is there a separate screen for login and sigh up? Surely what you mean is “hey! I have never had those credentials before, did you mistype em, or do you want to sign up?”

Why is it asking men for an account name and email if I press the “google” button? I just told you who I am by pressing that button in the first place. Give me a user name that’s some hash of my credentials and never show it to me. My visible id for all purposes should be “google-icon PaulMurrayCbr”.

You say “Register” and “Sign In” are the best terms, but your subconscious doesn’t agree with you.

In you post “Register” occurs 1 time, “Sign up” occurs 4 times, “Sign In” occurs 5 times, “Log in” occurs 13 times and “Login” occurs 29 times including in the title itself.

Very interesting post and also very interesting discussion, thanks.

We’ve done a lot of observation of low skills/low confidence users recently, so here are some extra thoughts based on their experiences.

Some people do not have email addresses or do not have access to their email.

Some low skills/low confidence users do not see any relevance to them of email, or feel unable to use it even if they had it. They may have limited access to computers - for example, using a friend or family member’s computer when they do have access, or only using a computer in a library or some other public arena. They may have an email address in theory but not recall it, or they may not have an email address.

A signin process that requires email excludes these users. That may be fine for many sites, but it isn’t acceptable for others - such as a government service where there is no alternative.

Some people have shared email addresses.
Another characteristic of low skills/low confidence users is that they may live in households where lack of money or lack of confidence means that they only have a single computer, and lack the skills to set up email accounts for each member of the household. The people in the household share an email account, and manage their email correspondence as a joint activity.

A signing process that requires a unique email address for each user excludes the second and subsequent user in these circumstances.

Label the buttons with what they do
You’ve placed the two options (“sign up” / “sign in”) as two buttons close together in most of the suggested layouts. We’ve seen this work well as users see the two options and consider them as a pair.

We’ve also seen low skills/low confidence users get stuck as they don’t understand the term ‘sign in’. In one test, users correctly chose the other button (which had a site-specific name) solely because they didn’t understand ‘sign in’ so opted for the other button as the least-worst available choice. When a user has low confidence to start with, any ‘least worst’ choice like this that further undermines confidence is a definite risk for breaking off.

So: having a pair of buttons to consider together: excellent. But careful choice of the text on the buttons is essential - and of course, testing that choice with your specific users.

Frequency of use of a term is not the same as it being understood in context
I agree with your analysis that ‘sign in’ is used more frequently than ‘log in’.

Any high skills/high confidence user is very likely to know ‘sign in’, ‘log in’ and ‘login’ and what their effects are. If that’s your audience, it won’t matter much which you use.

But, as mentioned above, that doesn’t mean that low skills/low confidence users will understand what you mean by it when they encounter it. So whichever one you choose, you may need to explain it.

Avoid two-column layouts
I don’t think it’s yet been mentioned in the column or discussion but it’s worth repeating: don’t use two-column layouts. I suspect you didn’t bother to mention the issue because you know they’re troublesome and wouldn’t use them.

Similarly:
Don’t put textbox labels inside the boxes
Another point that’s worth mentioning explicitly: labels inside boxes are a disaster for low skills/low confidence users and for accessibility - and they’re not great for many other users. I suspect this one is also so obvious as an issue that you thought it wasn’t worth mentioning, but I see violations of this basic rule so often on sign-in forms that I think it needs to be stated explicitly.

Thanks again for a great article and great comments.

Caroline Jarrett
@cjforms

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And why not have only one form with email and pass, that automatically create the user account if that doesnt exist?
I may be missing something obvious, but I couldnt find a reason against it.