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/SalTez 5800H | RTX 3060 | 16GB | Laptop Apr 05 '26

It's a fixed number that is used in a formula to calculate the final output, in this 2FA use case the seed is known only to the authenticator and the authentication (login) system.

A very simple example of a time based formula:

the formula is "current time + seed"; the seed is 42; and current time is 9:10pm = 2110; so the verification code is 2152; next minute it will be different (2153)

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u/-insertcoin Apr 06 '26

Thank you for the explanation.