paper-token/README.md

2.7 KiB

paper token

paper token is a PDF generator to create paper-based OTP (RFC 4226) token.

why?

Hardware tokens are very costly and often require a proprietary infrastructure. (near impossible to find HOTP-compatible hardware token without requiring the linked proprietary infrastructure) Software tokens can be also painful and always require a second device like a phone to operate properly.

security?

Paper is not less secure than an phone running a software token. With a sheet paper and a pencil, you have the control of the token. Do you have the control of your phone and the software running on it?

For a negligible cost, you have a token and you just need to protect that sheet of paper.

An OTP is just an one-time password and this recommendation makes a lot of sense for the paper-based token too :

Simply, people can no longer remember passwords good enough to reliably defend against dictionary attacks, and are much more secure if they choose a password too complicated to remember and then write it down. We're all good at securing small pieces of paper. I recommend that people write their passwords down on a small piece of paper, and keep it with their other valuable small pieces of paper: in their wallet. —Bruce Schneier 2005

perl requirements

  • Authen::HOTP
  • PDF::API2
  • PDF::Table
  • Getopt::Compact

how to use it

perl paper-token.pl --output test.pdf --counter 0 --end 200 --secret 3132333435363738393031323334353637383930 --digits 6

sample token (PDF)

OpenOTP server installation

You have various free software solution to run on the server side for the authentication of the tokens. You can have a look at the setting up of an OpenOTP server to work with those paper-based token.

LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2010 Alexandre Dulaunoy, http://www.foo.be/

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.