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Re:Open Letter to Mozilla: Bring Back Persona by debaserab2 on Thursday December 24, 2015 @02:24PM (#10789304)
This is essentially the same thing as having your password emailed to you and is insecure for all the same reasons. Youre putting the responsibility of security on the email provider, which you can't control.
Re:Open Letter to Mozilla: Bring Back Persona by cpeterso on Thursday December 24, 2015 @03:21PM (#10789472)
The emailed login link is a short-lived, one-time password and can be associated with a cookie already set on the website's "send me a login email" page.
Re:Open Letter to Mozilla: Bring Back Persona by wtbob on Thursday December 24, 2015 @05:39PM (#10789804)
> This is essentially the same thing as having your password emailed to you and is insecure for all the same reasons.

No, it's essentially the same thing as having a password-reset email sent to one, which is already the case for just about any account anyway.

> You're putting the responsibility of security on the email provider, which you can't control.

Your email provider is already capable of visiting a site, claiming to be you & claiming to have forgotten your password, then intercepting the password-reset email and resetting your password (about the only sites which require more than this are banks).

You can extend any flow which is secure against an evil email provider resetting a password to be equally secure against an evil email provider logging in. Obviously you could add an SMS code, which would then require subverting your mobile provider as well as your email; ditto a landline call.