Show HN: Web Tunnels – Passwordless authentication for the web

by qudat • 2 years ago

6 4 2 years ago

qudat2• 2 years ago

Hi everyone!

At pico.sh we have been experimenting with new and interesting ways to leverage SSH for all sorts of use cases. Our latest experiment are with web tunnels an new way to serve authenticated sites.

Happy to answer any questions and very excited to receive feedback on this new way to authenticate users on the web.

mrorbitman2• 2 years ago

Of course the catch is that our users need to be able to run SSH commands

If we ever crack how to make that normie-accessible, the the game is flipped upside down.

Look at how much energy has been put into Passkeys - a massive orchestration and cooperation from google, microsoft, apple... And it’s still slow AF, often requires that you find your second Passkey device, bluetooth, QR code scanning etc.

qudat2• 2 years ago

Look at how much energy has been put into Passkeys

Yep, this is a huge reason why we are so excited about web tunnels because we are already loving the DX/UX around it. The end-user doesn't need to install anything new and they have access to private sites using just SSH keypairs and a tunnel.

For example, when using any code forge (gitea, github, gitlab, sourcehut, etc.) they require two completely separate authentication mechanisms: one for SSH and one for web.

Now imagine the simplicity of a git code forge that leverages web tunnels to serve its web ui: no separate login and as long as the tunnel is open, you have authenticated access to the web viewer.

So combine web tunnels with autossh and you are forever authenticated to your authenticated sites.

mrorbitman2• 2 years ago

Wow that's a great point. Git repository hosts are perfect use case for this.

One of the challenges of having the ssh key be the identity connecting multiple devices, another challenge is if you lose access to your ssh key, I'm not sure what the "forgot password" flow would be. Especially since you wouldn't even have a signup email address.

Show HN: Web Tunnels – Passwordless authentication for the web

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