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Posted by bukershok 3 hours ago

Show HN: Laptop is the last place your secrets are still in plaintext(github.com)
44 points | 55 commentspage 2
efitz 3 hours ago|
I am actually building the exact same thing- encrypted vaults for files or folders, encrypted with a biometric gated key in the Secure Enclave!
zahrevsky 2 hours ago||
I don't know about how secure this is, but I just love the UX. Scanning and process grant are great features UX-wise.
hypfer 2 hours ago|
The medicine did not actually cure my terminal illness, but it surely tasted great and made me feel good about myself.
nf-x 2 hours ago||
How funny it may sound, but I was recently researching around for these kinds of tools for the same exact purposes.

Where I got stuck was at the Secure Enclave storing biometric-crypted payloads in the keychain, but couldn’t get it to work without Apple Developer subscription for code signing, otherwise these features wouldn’t work. And nobody with an Apple Developer subscription wants to sign someone else’s code, obviously. I really wonder why Apple itself, or any other reputable company, didn’t publish an utility like this already - it’s also a trust issue, when you run code like this.

The issue is that /usr/sbin/security invocations can be obscured to read from keychain, but require password typing every time, which is annoying. And lazy people can just hit “trust” by mistake. And then it’s just another clear text, but more annoying to reach.

Even though, it may be possible to show a touchID prompt in two other scenarios: - encrypting payload with a key stored in the enclave - then it becomes closer to SOPS approach. Age plugin for sops also supports using private keys on yubikey, by the way. But SOPS UX feels clunky. - just calling the APIs to show touchID as part of the application logic, like all modern password managers do. But then you really have to trust the password manager or the tool that does it, because touchID doesn’t equal security in this case.

Some password managers support CLI, SDK, and Terraform providers for working with their secrets, but that requires an IPC enabled, potentially increasing the risk for the other secrets stored in the same password manager.

Oh well, tough choices everywhere.

chanux 1 hour ago|
> potentially increasing the risk for the other secrets stored in the same password manager.

As pointed to me by a friend, this is one reason not to give in to the convenience of the secrets manager you already use.

My use case for fnox with keepassdb back-end was partially validated but as I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, having to set master password in an env var is a bit of snag for the workflow.

nf-x 1 hour ago||
keepass is great, because it doesn't require any service to operate - it's just a file. technically, you are responsible for backing it up, but more centralized options possible. I used it for 4 years pre-touchID era in a corporate setting and it worked great. For a single device. UX was very "open source", but hey - it's a free software with other focus in mind.

i know other people partitioning their secrets into multiple keepassx vault files, so the argument about using the same password manager can be interpreted differently.

vintagedave 3 hours ago||
Interesting idea! How do you achieve it? Some kind of file system driver that recognises the calling process?
bukershok 2 hours ago||
[flagged]
zahrevsky 3 hours ago||
If only there was a Markdown file in the repo, that explains it. It could have a URL, say, https://github.com/jitpass/jit/blob/main/docs%2Fgetting-star...
vintagedave 2 hours ago||
Please avoid the snark.

I read the readme in full, I think that's an appropriate level of effort. Your link also still doesn't answer it, though it hints: 'A migrated .env is a live mount (a named pipe), not a plain file'. So is that a file system driver, or...?

Even https://github.com/jitpass/jit/blob/main/docs/getting-starte... says it's a local encrypted store - and that's repeated many times across the docs Claude-style - but it doesn't explain the mechanism whereby reading a file gets the results from that store.

bukershok 2 hours ago||
[flagged]
notthetup 2 hours ago||
Just a note, it’s on a Polyform Perimeter license.
bukershok 1 hour ago|
Yes, but it's completely free for internal Personal and Company use.
hypfer 2 hours ago||
Snake oil claude slop. No other words for it.

If someone or something is executing code on your machine, you have already lost. Making it _slightly harder_ for it to eventually get your passwords anyway is mostly a performative action.

__

Btw, enable "showdead" and enjoy OP actually pasting LLM output verbatim as a "defense".

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49317802

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49317819

Maybe claude can reword your claude slop for you. You can still edit those posts I guess.

__

bukershok 2 minutes ago [dead] | parent | context | flag | vouch | favorite | on: Show HN: Laptop is the last place your secrets are...

Worth separating two things here.

That's curl | tar, not curl | sh, as a few people noted. But the real answer is: don't use it. The recommended install is brew install jitpass/tap/jitpass.

Releases are Developer ID signed and notarized by Apple. Homebrew quarantines its download and Gatekeeper checks it against the notarization ticket before it runs. jit doctor reports the Team ID it verified, so you can check rather than take my word for it. jit upgrade refuses to install anything whose signature and checksum don't both verify, with no override flag.

The tarball line is there for people without Homebrew, and it is the weaker path precisely because curl sets no quarantine bit, so Gatekeeper never consults the ticket. Point taken: leading with it in the README undercuts the argument on the same page. I'll flip the order.

__

Sorry if this violates the "no dunking" rule or whatever, but this cancer needs to be eradicated.

bukershok 2 hours ago||
Hypfer, I am a security leader at the age of 42 with more than 15 years of experience in the field, and I will tell you the truth: I lead a lot of cyber incidents. The purpose of this tool is to help you and companies protect yourselves from supply chain attacks and infiltrators for free no cost, no need for expensive 1Password tools. I put my heart into this tool, so give it a try and contact me directly if you need anything. I will be glad to get your feedback on the tool. No AI fluff :) linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/menitasa/
hypfer 2 hours ago||
Ayy, finally, a human response. And it's an appeal to authority/seniority.

Can you just.. not?

The intended purpose of the tool is perfectly clear. There was never any confusion about it.

bukershok 2 hours ago||
[flagged]
concinds 2 hours ago|||
> If someone or something is executing code on your machine, you have already lost

This nonsensical attitude is thankfully dying out in favor of more sophisticated approaches.

hypfer 2 hours ago||
What makes it nonsensical?
concinds 2 hours ago||
There is no objective or tangible reason you must give up at that stage. We all run untrusted code on our machines, whether it's third-party apps or visiting websites.
hypfer 1 hour ago||
How does (the unfounded claim of) "everyone is doing [X]" make "we probably shouldn't be doing [X]" "nonsensical"?

Sounds unconvincing. Can you elaborate further?

bukershok 1 hour ago||
[dead]
bukershok 2 hours ago||
[flagged]
ekianjo 2 hours ago||
on Linux use systemd-credentials. It already does that
chanux 50 minutes ago||
Available since 2021 (systemd v250) and I just got to know. Better late than never I guess.

PS: Thank you!

bukershok 1 hour ago|||
Soon it will also be for Linux
nf-x 57 minutes ago|||
there are so many great tools in the baseline core infrastructure. and there's so much NIH syndrome still.

appreciation and OS aside, systemd-creds relays long-lived creds into long-lived processes, and author's AI slop attempts at short-lived/on-demand injections. Apparently, author's AI slop gets a lot of iterations, but has not much of external scrutiny yet.

porridgeraisin 2 hours ago||
Yes, you can even have it tpm-backed.

echo -n "sk-proj-12345..." | systemd-creds encrypt --with-key=tpm2 --name=openai_key - openai.cred

And then at runtime export OPENAI_API_KEY=$(sudo systemd-creds decrypt openai.cred)

bukershok 2 hours ago||
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