Master Password

Master Password is a completely new way of thinking about passwords.

It consists of an algorithm that implements the core idea and applications for various platforms making the alogirthm available to users on a variety of devices and platforms.

To skip the intro and go straight to the information on how to use the code, click here.

Master Password is available for iOS, macOS, Android, Desktop, and Console.

Master Password is also available from the following package managers: mac OS: Homebrew. Get in touch if you are interested in adding Master Password to any other package managers.

What is a password?

The "password". Somehow, passwords have become the default solution to authentication across the web. We've long since accepted this as the way things are, but let's stop to think for a moment about what passwords actually are:

A password is a secret that is known only to the party providing a service and the party that should be allowed access to this service.

Simple enough - a secret that you know and your website knows but nobody else, thereby guaranteeing that you and only you have access to your account on this website. Unfortunately, in practice, the ubiquitous use of passwords has us completely overwhelmed. And the only way we can cope with that is by finding ways of making the problem manageable.

What's the problem?

Coming up with a secret password is pretty easy. Say you're organizing a secret meeting and will only let people in if they know the password at the door. You tell those you trust, the password for tonight's meeting is "purple oranges with a smile".

The problem we have in our daily lives, however, is the fact that we need secret passwords for almost everything now. A password for our email, twitter, 9gag, facebook, imgur, amazon, ebay, paypal, bank, reddit, etc. And every time we want to use a new site, we need another one. The problem now becomes clear: passwords are meant to be remembered and recalled with ease when needed, but this becomes impossible when we have secrets for every distinct activity in our lives.

We cannot recall passwords the way we are expected to when there are too many.

Coping

Life gives us no advice on how to deal with this problem. So we find our own ways:

• We use a single personal secret for all our websites, thereby violating the secrecy of these passwords (eg. you've given your email secret to twitter).
• We use simple variations of a personal secret or pattern, thereby trivializing the complexity of these passwords (eg. google98, twitter98; reversals, eg. 8991elgoog)
• We use external means of remembering passwords, thereby increasing the risk of loss (both loss of access when we lose the tool and theft when a thief finds our tool)

These coping mechanisms come in various forms, and they all have down-sides, because at the root of each of these lies an undeniable truth:

Our passwords are no longer true to the original definition.

Master Password's approach

The theory behind Master Password starts with accepting that it is impossible to keep track of passwords for all your accounts. Instead, we return to the core premise of the password: a secret phrase that you can remember easily, all by yourself.

Master Password solves this problem by letting you remember one and only one password. You use this password with Master Password only. Master Password then gives you access to any website or service you want by creating a website-specific key for it.

1. You sign into Master Password using your one password.
2. You ask Master Password for the key to enter your website, eg. twitter.
3. You log into twitter using your username and the key from Master Password.

Master Password is not a password manager. It does not store your website passwords. Therefore, there is zero risk of you losing your website passwords (or them falling in the wrong hands). Master Password simply uses your one password and the name of the site to generate a site-specific secret.

Benefits

• You don't need to come up with a secure password every time you make a new account - Master Password gives you the key for it.
• You don't need to try to remember a password you created two years ago for that one account - Master Password just gives you the key for it.
• You don't need to that you can't get into that account you made at work when you come home because you don't have your work passwords with you - Master Password is always available.
• You don't need to try to keep password lists in sync or stored somewhere easily accessible - Master Password is always available.
• You don't need to worry what you'll do if your computer dies or you need to log into your bank while you're in the airport transit zone - Master Password is always available.
• You don't need to worry about your password manager website getting hacked, your phone getting duplicated, somebody taking a picture of your passwords book - Master Password keeps no records.

How does it work?

The details of how Master Password works are available here.

In short:

master-key = SCRYPT( user-name, master-password )
site-key = HMAC-SHA-256( site-name . site-counter, master-key )
site-password = PW-TEMPLATE( site-key, site-template )

Master Password can derive the site-password in an entirely stateless manner. It is therefore better defined as a calculator than a manager. It is the user's responsibility to remember the inputs: user-name, master-password, site-name, site-counter and site-template.

We standardize user-name as your full name, site-name as the domain name of the site, site-counter to 1 (unless you explicitly increment it) and site-template to Long Password; as a result the only token the user really needs to remember actively is master-password.

Source Code

Master Password's algorithm is documented and its implementation is Free Software (GPLv3).

Components

There are several components available here. As an end-user, you can currently use the iOS app, the Android app, the OS X app, the Java desktop app, the C CLI app or the Java CLI app. There are also several components that are useful for developers:

• core/c: This is the reference implementation of the Master Password algorithm, written in C.
• core/java/algorithm: This is a Java implementation of the Master Password algorithm.
• core/java/model: This is an object model to simplify use of Master Password by Java applications.
• core/java/tests: These are Java integration tests designed to ensure Master Password performs as expected.
• platform-android: This is the official Android implementation of Master Password in Java.
• platform-darwin: This is the official iOS and OS X implementation of Master Password in Objective-C.
• platform-independent/cli-c: This is the platform-independent console implementation of Master Password, written in C.
• platform-independent/cli-java: This is the platform-independent console implementation of Master Password, written in Java.
• platform-independent/gui-java: This is the platform-independent desktop implementation of Master Password, written in Java.
• platform-independent/web-js: This is the platform-independent browser application for Master Password, written in JavaScript.

Building and running

Java

Go into the build root directory and run gradle build. All Java components will then be built, you can find the build product for each component by going into the component's directory and looking in its own build subdirectory.

macOS or iOS

Go into platform-darwin and open MasterPassword.xcworkspace in Xcode. Select the desired target from the Scheme Selector and build, run or archive.

Support

Feel free to contribute by forking the project, contributing issues or joining the discussion on Gitter, #masterpassword (on chat.freenode.net) or #masterpassword:lyndir.com (on Matrix).