wordpress.com recently added two step authentication. Hooray for taking security seriously! Unfortunately the setup page is full of fail:

  • No indication whether the trunk prefix should be included in the number. I tried both with and without one, twice, but never received a single message. It is not obvious how it would occur to anyone to try both, especially for people who always use one or the other.
  • Why is Google Authenticator so massively emphasized over SMS? Granted, many rich* people have a smartphone, but there is no indication why using a third party app is preferable to the solution which works on every mobile phone capable of connecting to an existing network. YAGNI, and if GitHub gets by with SMS then it's good enough for me.
  • Why is there a separate "Send SMS" button? Surely by the time the "Verify Code" page shows up you should have sent the message.
  • The first page contains an obvious button to go to the next step. The second page contains three differently styled button-ish elements to show download links for one app and two plain links to go to the next page. The third page (after following the "use Two Step Authentication via SMS" link) contains one left-aligned and one right-aligned button. I haven't got to the last page yet; I just hope it isn't too crazy.
  • No relevant help page in sight.
  • No context-sensitive support link. For a new feature of such importance and with the possibility of locking people out pending manual intervention I'd expect more direct support integration.
  • Most search results for "sms authentication" in their forums (Update: sorry, the link is dead) seem to revolve around problems deactivating this feature. Sounds like it's simply not ready yet.

PS: I'm using SMS codes for several other international services, and they all work fine.

* If you're reading this, then you are very likely within the 10% richest people on the Earth.