Two-Factor Security Key
Two-Factor Security Key
[Cueball and Ponytail stand facing each other.] Cueball: I got one of those two-factor security keys you've been bugging me about. Ponytail: Great!
[Cueball and Ponytail continue facing each other.] Cueball: It took a lot of work, fiddling with configurations, annoying setbacks, and general pain,
[Closeup on Cueball holding a keychain.] Cueball: ... but I finally got it onto the metal ring of my keychain. Ponytail [off-panel]: At least now it's secure. Cueball: Yeah, this thing is not coming off.
An authenticaion 'factor' is a distinct method of proving your legitimate use of a service or product. They can be broadly be grouped into three main groups.
One-Factor Authentication now may trying to avoid the shortcomings of the Password system (including the intervention of a 'remembered' password) by developing passwordless authentication techniques based upon "have/are" factors only.
Two-Factor Authentication was usually the addition of a physical/biometric authentication method to augment each use of a known password/PIN (e.g. the 'rolling token' number).
Conversely, the physical authentication of a bank-card has required backing up by its remembered PIN when used in cash-machines/ATMs. (In shops, checking against the signature written on the same card was for a long time the verification of valid ownership, this recently progressed to Chip-And-Pin, but then in many cases has been superceded by Contactless (NFC) versions, making it a Single-Factor solution in sufficiently low-value transactions.)
Many people may be more familiar with an occasional Second-Factor Re Authentication, when (for one reason or another) they are no longer able to provide a valid password for some login or other, and activate the "Forgot my password" request which sends a link to their backup email account. Where one is set up, is still active and and you have not also lost the ability to access that. (This is not the situation that Cueball is in, or may be in.) This has largely replaced the infamous "Challenge Question" (though may still be combined with it)  probably to defeat replay-attacks or the more clever phishing attacks.
Three-Factor Authentication should really be a "know" and "have" and "are" combination. Imagine the cinematic scene of the 'President' granting authority for a nuclear attack by inserting a physical key into the required device, typing in their code and then presenting their eye to a retinal scanner.
Anything that is (seriously) quoted as Four-Factor, or above, is going to either duplicate the number of required verifications of a similar scope (towards diminishing returns) or is describing a setup of a number of optional methods from which a lesser number would be considered sufficiently valid to provide. e.g. registering all ten finger/thumb-prints in case of some random future digital injury.


Two factor security authentication (also see #Trivia ) is something that Ponytail has clearly been talking to Cueball about. In this strip, Cueball is telling her that he has finally buckled down and gotten the two factor security key that she has pestered him to get.
He recites the trials that he endured in "installing" the key, all of which seem plausible configuration issues for setting up a proper two-factor authentication from scratch.  However it is then revealed that all this work was just the task of attaching the 'key' (which looks like it could be a common brand of physical two-factor key fob or dongle) onto his metal keyring.
Metal keyrings are reliably secure as far as keeping a key attached, but this is in part because of how notoriously difficult it is to add a key to or remove a key from them. The rings must be forced apart and held apart while the key traverses however many layers the ring has (usually two or three, though keyrings with more layers are not unheard of). Cueball confidently asserts (to off-screen Ponytail, who probably was expecting something more practical) that his key is not coming off, indicating both a (well-founded) faith in the keyring's ability to keep his key, and a desire to not go through the same process in reverse.  Presumably all his effort was in "installing" the key onto the keychain, and he probably hasn't actually set it up for any of his accounts, leaving them just as insecure as they were.
The title text has a similar double meaning.  Cueball would of course use it to the "proof" of his efforts installing the key--though difficult, metal keyrings can be forced apart physically by human hands, at least if the human in question has fingernails sturdy enough to slip between the rings, at which point the insertion of a finger would be enough to keep it apart until the key is inserted. However, keeping the rings apart can be strenuous on the fingers, and can result in bruising, which Cueball is all too familiar with. Proof of work alludes to the cryptographic concept, which ties (sideways, as proof of work is a security term for a concept intended to deter denial of service and similar volume-based attacks but not directly related) back into the two-factor authentication.
Additionally a third meaning could be that while he spent a lot of time setting up 2FA he totally overlooked the possibility of him losing his whole keychain thus locking him out of all the services that requires 2FA if he didn't set up yet another layer of backup.
[Cueball and Ponytail stand facing each other.] Cueball: I got one of those two-factor security keys you've been bugging me about. Ponytail: Great!
[Cueball and Ponytail continue facing each other.] Cueball: It took a lot of work, fiddling with configurations, annoying setbacks, and general pain,
[Closeup on Cueball holding a keychain.] Cueball: ... but I finally got it onto the metal ring of my keychain. Ponytail [off-panel]: At least now it's secure. Cueball: Yeah, this thing is not coming off.
An authenticaion 'factor' is a distinct method of proving your legitimate use of a service or product. They can be broadly be grouped into three main groups.
One-Factor Authentication now may trying to avoid the shortcomings of the Password system (including the intervention of a 'remembered' password) by developing passwordless authentication techniques based upon "have/are" factors only.
Two-Factor Authentication was usually the addition of a physical/biometric authentication method to augment each use of a known password/PIN (e.g. the 'rolling token' number).
Conversely, the physical authentication of a bank-card has required backing up by its remembered PIN when used in cash-machines/ATMs. (In shops, checking against the signature written on the same card was for a long time the verification of valid ownership, this recently progressed to Chip-And-Pin, but then in many cases has been superceded by Contactless (NFC) versions, making it a Single-Factor solution in sufficiently low-value transactions.)
Many people may be more familiar with an occasional Second-Factor Re Authentication, when (for one reason or another) they are no longer able to provide a valid password for some login or other, and activate the "Forgot my password" request which sends a link to their backup email account. Where one is set up, is still active and and you have not also lost the ability to access that. (This is not the situation that Cueball is in, or may be in.) This has largely replaced the infamous "Challenge Question" (though may still be combined with it)  probably to defeat replay-attacks or the more clever phishing attacks.
Three-Factor Authentication should really be a "know" and "have" and "are" combination. Imagine the cinematic scene of the 'President' granting authority for a nuclear attack by inserting a physical key into the required device, typing in their code and then presenting their eye to a retinal scanner.
Anything that is (seriously) quoted as Four-Factor, or above, is going to either duplicate the number of required verifications of a similar scope (towards diminishing returns) or is describing a setup of a number of optional methods from which a lesser number would be considered sufficiently valid to provide. e.g. registering all ten finger/thumb-prints in case of some random future digital injury.

