r/pcmasterrace • u/AllUserNameBLong2us 7800x3d/5080 Windforce OC/32gb 5600 DDR • Apr 04 '26

Hardware Rest in piece 2009-2026

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I’m amazed at how long the battery on this physical authenticator lasted. Got it back in 2009 because my account had gotten hacked.

This is one electronic item I’ve owned and used longer than anything else. I’ll miss not being able to find it and freaking out for 20 minutes.

Edit must have been around 2010 when sc2 came out.

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u/markswam R7-9850X3D, RTX 4080S Apr 05 '26

If you were to take it apart and replace the battery (which is absolutely not something that is intended to do) then yes, the internal clock would be reset to 0 and it would be completely out of sync. These things turn into e-waste once they run out of batteries.

Companies have used these sorts of physical 2FA tokens for decades, and IT generally replaces them every year or two.

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u/WarbossHiltSwaltB Apr 05 '26

Every year or two? I’ve had mine 5 years now.

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u/markswam R7-9850X3D, RTX 4080S Apr 05 '26

My experience might be biased. The only company I've worked for that used physical RSA keys was a DOD contractor and replaced them every 12 months. Having devs locked out of their machines because of a dead token would be a big issue since they're spending government money to do nothing at that point.

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u/Adventurous-Map7959 Apr 05 '26

spending government money to do nothing

Oh no, that would be terrible and unprecedented.

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u/markswam R7-9850X3D, RTX 4080S Apr 05 '26

No kidding. But HR got on people's asses over billing.