https://sandfox.me/tags/otp.xml 2026-09-02T00:44:42Z Anton Smirnov Nikola https://sandfox.me/misc/otp-links.html 2020-08-26T16:43:00+03:00 2020-08-26T16:43:00+03:00 Anton Smirnov

<p>Have you ever seen an one time password link in a regular <code class="docutils literal">&lt;a&gt;</code> tag?</p> <p>Here is an example TOTP link from Google Authenticator repo:</p> <pre class="literal-block">otpauth://totp/Example:alice@google.com?secret=JBSWY3DPEHPK3PXP&amp;issuer=Example</pre> <p>The most familiar form for them is QR codes:</p> <img alt="QR code for the link above" src="https://sandfox.me/images/misc/otp-links/qr.png"> <p>Which is a problem if you're alterady on your mobile device and you can't scan it. For this case there is usually a text like "Please manually add the key <code class="docutils literal">JBSW Y3DP EHPK 3PXP</code> to your Authenticator app". But what about the link itself? Well, just try it on your phone: <a class="reference external" href="otpauth://totp/Example:alice@google.com?secret=JBSWY3DPEHPK3PXP&amp;issuer=Example">click me</a>.</p> <p>I'm really shocked that it works perfectly and that I have never seen this simple and very web style solution in action.</p>