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‘Authenticators’ and ‘Deployment of Authenticators’


There are not a few security professionals who wrongly mix up the layer of ‘authenticators’ with that of ‘deployment of authenticators’, talking as though the former and the latter were competing each other, for example, ‘Multi-Factor Authentication is better than a password’ and ‘ID federation is better than a password’.

The password is an ‘authenticator’. So are the token and biometrics. Whereas MFA and ID federation like FIDO and Open ID are ‘deployment of the authenticators’

Expanded Password System is to be found on the layer of 'authenticator', while the likes of Open ID and FIDO are all to be found on the upper layer of 'deployment of authenticators' and, as such, the likes of Open ID and FIDO could naturally be our down-stream partners.

There are also some people who wrongly allege that removing an authenticator should increase security.  They are plainly misguided as examined here – “Removal of Passwords and Its Security Effect” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/removal-passwords-its-security-effect-hitoshi-kokumai/


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