RSA SecureID? "It's only wafer thin!"



This is Josh. He works in our Information Tech group. When he isn’t setting up computers or fixing problems, he’s humoring me by posing like a waiter as he delivers these cool little RSA SecureID computer security devices. Okay, the rest of this post is going to be super nerdy, so consider yourself warned.

So how do these work? Basically, every 60 seconds these little security devices flash a new unique number sequence that you use for logging into computer systems here at Zappos. It also has a very accurate clock built in so it displays the same number sequence during the same time interval as the “mother ship” which decides whether to log you in or not. In other words, if I type in 314271 at exactly noon, because the built in clock is super accurate, the mother ship will go “yep, that’s the correct sequence for noon today, this must be a legit login.”

If the clock was not accurate, the correct number sequence would not be displayed at the correct time. And when I typed it in, the mothership would go “hmmm, either this is not a legit login or John is typing really slow because he is at one of those infamous Zappos happy hours. In either case, I shall deny him access.” See, that’s why it’s called the mother ship.

Of course we don’t just type in the 6 numbers, otherwise if we either lost a SecureID or somebody swiped one, they could just type in the number! Each Zappos person who uses these also receives a personal code sequence that they type in along with the SecureID sequence. In case we forget, we also have this sequence tattooed on the bottom of our right foot.

And that’s all I have to say about that!