Re: How to authentificate an user via telephon?

On Tue, Dec 03, 2002 at 07:50:10PM +0100, Robert Sieber wrote:
> Hello colleauges,

You could have a passphrase book, and tell the user, "Your password has been set to the next passphrase".

Some places that don't *really* care about security do the password for when you call the support desk. This is usually a pet's name, birthday, or otherwise easily remembered crappy password.

This just leaves you with an account that has two passwords, one of which is never going to change *and* is very likely the worst password one would ever want to pick.

If they ask you to reset only one of the passwords, then they still know the rest. They could provide authentication on another service to alter their password on the requested service.

Our "easy for the user" is they show up at the help desk with their University ID (I work for a University). A pain in the butt for folks out of town, but oh well. The "I am really who I say I am" identity claim over the phone, just doesn't work... Not even if "I *Really* am who I say I am".

   __o		Bradley Arlt			Security Team Lead
 _ \<_		arlt@cpsc.ucalgary.ca		University Of Calgary
(_)/(_) 	I should be biking right now.	Computer Science