feedback on announced plan to kill TOTP

[ljharb]

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Personally, I see this as a very harmful decision. It will kill my workflow; having to open a web browser is very disruptive (which is why i still use TOTP and not web auth), and my existing "publish from CI" setups that DO securely use two factors (as opposed to the automation/granular token-based workflows that use a single factor) rely on a TOTP.

Please do not remove this highly critical feature.

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[leobalter]

meta response: as I mentioned in a slack thread from the OpenJS channel, I'll pick up to 3 feedback discussion posts pinned, all related to our recent publishing on our plan for a more secure npm supply chain.

[3nprob]

Thank you for raising this important topic, ljharb.

Agreed. Being able to do publishing fully from the terminal and without having to authenticate in a web browser is a workflow it'd be a pain to lose and arguably a reduction in security for some environments.

[sashahilton00]

Forcing people into passkeys is a bad idea.

The passkey authentication flow is clunky in it's current incarnation, in addition to this the current state of passkey management is unsatisfactory for many, in that it shepherds the user into a keystore that is in many ways a walled garden, especially in browser contexts.

Keys cannot easily be transferred across vendors in many cases, additionally the device sharing functionality that the major vendors (such as Apple & Google) have implemented, mean that in effect the passkey is only as secure as the vendor account password + some security questions.

The real benefits of webauthn, namely device-bound hardware keys, is not exposed/available in most cases. Whilst this remains the case, I would argue there isn't enough in favour of them to completely remove TOTP as an option, in addition to the other aforementioned reasons.

[KaKi87]

Keys cannot easily be transferred across vendors in many cases, additionally the device sharing functionality that the major vendors (such as Apple & Google) have implemented, mean that in effect the passkey is only as secure as the vendor account password + some security questions.

+1 for vendor lock-in. I store my TOTP tokens in a KDBX file (the open source vault format from KeePass) for the ability to use it on any device using any compatible app while preserving security, and therefore will never switch to passkeys for as long as these will require a backend, especially a GAFAM one.

I would say, time to move to JSR, but they exclusively offer login through GitHub^*, while GitHub owns NPM. 🤷 I also use TOTP on GitHub though, are they planning on removing that too ?

^* I just now submitted a feature request for JSR to support non-GitHub login.

[Shur0v]

TOTP should remain supported for CI/CD workflows that rely on token-based authentication.
Web-based auth isn’t practical for automated systems and breaks secure publishing pipelines.
Keeping TOTP ensures flexibility while maintaining strong two-factor security.

[aiboost]

I vote for keeping TOTP alongside adding new authentication methods.

TOTP is extremely handy for semi-automatic package publishing when you copy your one-time password into the terminal from KeePass2, which stores literally all my passwords and TOTP secrets.

At the same time, I think adding PassKeys is a timely decision. When the number of services using PassKeys becomes high enough and the tools and technology itself mature, I’ll consider migrating. But currently, I don’t think PassKeys could make my UX with NPM either easier or more secure.

Please don’t force migration from TOTP. It’s better to nudge people to enable 2FA at least. There’s nothing worse for the popularization of 2FA than tools that change too quickly, breaking support for previous technologies in favor of the newest ones.

[hoesknowhoes]

TOTP: zero money
physical token: not zero money

[ve3]

I'm not familiar with security key. From npm document page ( https://docs.npmjs.com/configuring-two-factor-authentication ) said:

To configure a security-key requires a modern browser that support WebAuthn. This will allow you to configure a biometric devices featuring Apple Touch ID, Face ID, or Windows Hello as well as physical keys such as Yubikey, Thetis, or Feitian.

However, I don't have any physical key, no web cam, no fingerprint scanner. So, my Windows Hello has no available to any of these.

Then what option is left for someone like this?