Fun fact: when my country transitioned to a new public authentication app, the default way was to use your passport to register. My passport was expired, though, so I had to show up in person with my birth certificate and social security card equivalent.
To get my birth certificate, I had to show up at the local office with, you guessed it, my passport.
Lucky for me that they accepted it in spite of being expired (none of the pertinent information such as my face, name and birth date had expired, after all), or I would probably be trapped in the loop to this day, years later.
Ohh, that reminds me of when I moved to Sweden. Their digital ID, bankID, is as the name suggests issued by your bank, not the government, even though it is used for all official authentication. And that includes… you guessed it, creating a bank account. So that was a real chicken and egg situation where it seemed impossible to be properly integrated into the Swedish system.
I think you have the situation everywhere. At one time in France they ask you for your bank account details to see that you have funds so that they give an ID. But the bank will refuse to open you an account without an ID. So it will depend on the agent handling your request.
Hi neighbor! waves across Øresund
Yeah, I’m a big fan of Scandinavian style government (unlike the current governments of both of our countries, it would seem) in general, but sometimes the bureaucracy can get a little bit ridiculous 😂
It seems like most countries have some variation of this issue. When I had to apply for government assistance here in Australia, there was a whole debacle because as I discovered, I don’t actually have a middle name but rather 2 first names because my birth information was filled in incorrectly. So that caused issues because all 3 of the IDs they demanded listed different information. My student ID didn’t list my second name at all, my learner driver permit initialised it, and my birth certificate listed it in full.
Then my government service account messed things up too, because certain services have my 2nd name listed as either a middle name, or just a second first name so they decided that because I have different government services linked in “different names” I must be committing fraud
Why do y’all in Europe have your bank manage your legal ID? Seems a bit backwards
We don’t. We show banks picture ID to prove that we are who we say we are. That picture ID is usually our passport or driver’s license, neither of which is managed by the bank.
Aegis Authenticator is the best 🏆
Best one out there
Thank you, how about for iOS users?
Just switch to Android/AOSP lolI’ve heard good things about Raivo Authenticator for Apple devices, although I’ve never used it myself.
That sort of risk is one major reason I stopped using MS Auth and went through the painstaking process of manually switching all of my accounts to a FOSS authenticator (Aegis Auth) instead.
PSA, don’t use Microsoft authenticator. It’s easy to accidentally wipe your cloud backup and lose all your authenticator codes when switching devices
Can you provide more info how it’s easy to accidentally wipe? I’ve only done a transfer once, but it was by installing authenticator on the new phone and logging in, then deleting the other one on the old phone after testing that the codes work.
You have to begin the recovery on the new device before logging in. If you log in normally and enable cloud backup on the new device, it will simply overwrite the existing backup with a new empty one
Microsoft will just refuse to let me log with a third-party TOTP after setting it up. Security key is also “not supported” on Firefox even though it works for every other site.
The most info they will get is my Minecraft account and that’s already too much…
Aegis Authenticator. Dont trust MS or Google your stuff
I got FreeOTP from F-droid. Works like a charm.
Aegis here
Isn’t that discontinued? I just installed aegis from fdroid
∞-FA
This is specifically an issue with corporate M365 accounts when a user tries to migrate to a new phone without access to the old phone where the authenticator was setup.
Personal MS accounts can backup their auth secret keys to cloud storage, and when signing in on a new device, it authenticates you with your cloud storage (Google/Apple) and properly restores your MS Authenticator app.
The issue is that while MS says you can backup your corporate M365 accounts in MS Authenticator, it doesnt actually store the secret key, so it’s useless.
Have your administrator enable TAP (Temporary Access Passwords) on the tenant. Then an M365 admin can create a TAP for your account that lets you login without a password/2FA. You can use the TAP to login and rejoin MS Authenticator app. The TAP expires in 1 hour by default.
MS auth also supports SMS via phone number. That’s a whole new level of insecure, but lets you migrate to a new phone rather easily.
I’m 90% sure, all that 2FA crap is a sham anyway.
Probably means there already is MFA setup on that account, and now you doing it a second time.
Or you can just press the “get codes” button in the top right.
I had this exact problem when I had to install this. Ridiculous
Wait, is this really possible? With Steam you still will be able to access TOPT in the mobile app if you need to log in the same app, at least that’s how it worked.
I mean, there are probably one time passwords that go with some of accounts when using F2A. But I don’t care about Microsoft account either way.
Anyone else hate Microsoft forcing you to use Authenticator rather than alternatives?
Just another way I’m forced to install Microsoft crap on my devices :/
It’s been a long time since I set it up, but I have Microsoft accounts in my usual TOTP app (Aegis). Maybe I did it manually? But it’s definitely possible.
I have 2FA through Authy on my Microsoft account.
You can work around it to use your own 2FA app.
Did it with my O365 account.
