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Re:Ask HN: Should HN Get 2FA? by PaulHoule on Monday June 29, 2026 @05:18PM (#48725386)
Look if I get locked out with real keys and locks I can call the locksmith and get the situation resolved.

If I get locked out of Google or Amazon or Facebook I can talk to the hand at best with no recourse at all. A lot of 2FA hardware is garbage, like the Yubikey I had that had the hole attaching it to my keychain worn out in less than two years -- it could have fallen away and been lost.

Re:Ask HN: Should HN Get 2FA? by rekabis on Monday June 29, 2026 @08:09PM (#48726992)
If you do 2FA without recovery keys or a recovery eMail, you’re doing it wrong.

Everything I have heard from you so far is draped with ignorance and misinformation.

Re:Ask HN: Should HN Get 2FA? by PaulHoule on Tuesday June 30, 2026 @10:46AM (#48733454)
recovery keys = "write down your password" which they've been telling us to not do for years

recovery email/phone = same threat model as regular passwords, and it's a big crack, all the time somebody bribes somebody at a phone carrier to take over the phone number of a crypto whale

Practically low-touch services are going to have to resort to these things, but they render 2FA performative.

Now at work 2FA is OK because I can go down the street and show my face and ID to the people at CIT and I don't mind it for my bank because their cost structure lets me do the same.

Re:Ask HN: Should HN Get 2FA? by rekabis on Tuesday June 30, 2026 @12:02PM (#48734646)
Thank you for confirming my second sentence for me. Especially the first sentence of your response - “write down your password”. Wow. This is the worst possible take I can imagine.

Like, this isn’t the 1980s anymore, password managers exist - even local-only ones - that can keep both strong passwords and recovery keys totally safe. KeePass in particular can be synced using server-free methods, keeping everything on-device, strongly encrypted, and essentially offline.

I suggest you touch some grass and actually educate yourself. TOTP 2FA is a massive leap in security that brings the traditional username+password safely into the modern threat era. Provided that the password is long+strong and the username leverages dot extensions in the eMail (if an eMail) or is a totally unique username (if only a text string), said three-point security can reliably exceed that of passkeys.