[Beowulf] One time passwords and two factor authentication for a HPC setup (might be offtopic? )

Leif Nixon nixon at nsc.liu.se
Mon Oct 12 12:35:03 PDT 2009


Rahul Nabar <rpnabar at gmail.com> writes:

> Yess! For sure. I used to work in a corporate stup where this was a
> nightmare. Some "smart" sys admin had decided to use the same magnetic
> ID for door-access, photoID, and computer OTP authentication. You
> needed the ID-card inserted  into a reader connected via USB to the
> computer. The moment you pulled the card out the computer logged off.
> Result was that each time you went for a coffee or a restroom break
> you had a logged out machine.

That's the point.

> Now there might be some who may say that's the point but I just think
> it was a pain.

Sure it's a pain. Hopefully there had been a proper risk analysis
carried out that indicated that it still was the right thing to do.

-- 
                               / Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing
Leif Nixon - Security officer <  National Supercomputer Centre
                               \ Nordic Data Grid Facility



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