The problem is whether or not the benefit outweighs the additional risks introduced — losing account access when you lose a device, furthering device lock down, difficulty transferring the passkey between devices, UX degradation due to bad implementation. In my opinion the answer is no and I am sticking with my passwords.
Unfortunately, it’s exactly those websites that I think would be unlikely to support passkeys at all.
Passkeys can in fact be backed by exactly this, i.e. a HMAC-only stateless implementation backed by a single password: https://github.com/lxgr/brainchain
Yes of course. Just like you do for passkeys.
> Passkeys can in fact be backed by exactly this, i.e. a HMAC-only stateless implementation backed by a single password: https://github.com/lxgr/brainchain
No, not quite. It's written on there:
> "Login" with your passphrase, and you can create non-discoverable WebAuthN credentials (don't call them passkeys, but definitely be reminded of them) at ~all~ some websites supporting them (...)
That's the thing: with passwords, a website/app cannot prevent you from controlling the password yourself. With passkeys and attestation it can.
Some still might, e.g. for corporate or high security contexts, but I don't think it'll become a mass-adopted thing if things don't somehow drastically change course.
I saw passkey boosters go very, very rapidly from "Passkeys are immune to phishing!" to "Passkeys are phishing resistant!" when lots of real-world people started using passkeys and demonstrated that you absolutely must have a way to back them up and move them around.
You can't copy them out on at least the iOS, Android, and (to my knowledge) Windows default implementations.
> lots of real-world people started using passkeys and demonstrated that you absolutely must have a way to back them up and move them around.
Millions of people use them without being able to move them around in the way you describe.
Pardon? The official support docs disagree with you [0][1][2]. They absolutely leave the device.
Other passkey managers let them leave the device in a way that you control, but even the default ones copy them off the system they were created on.
[0] <https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6197437?hl=en&co=...>
[1] <https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/passwords-devices-iph...>
[2] Examine the "Can I use passkeys across multiple devices?" Q and its A here: <https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/passkeys-frequen...>
Both Apple and Google have pretty elaborate ceremonies for adding a new device to an existing account in a way that synchronizes over passkeys.
When passkeys were first introduced, they were 100% stuck to the device that they were created. There was absolutely no real way to copy them off. This is when proponents were -correctly- making the claim that they were immune to phishing.
When lots of users (who -notably- were not supported by whole-ass IT departments who set up and run systems that handle provisioning and enrolling new devices) started using passkeys, the correctness of the thing that many non-boosters were screaming ("You have to have a way to back these up and move them between devices!") became abundantly clear. Passkeys became something that could be copied off of devices, and proponents -correctly- switched to the claim "Passkeys are phishing resistant".
Once things switched around so that passkeys were no longer stuck on a single device, third-party managers got the ability to manage and copy passkeys. [0]
Hopefully it's now clear that the shift from "they never leave the device" to "they do leave the device" (and the consequences of this change) is what I'm talking about.
[0] At least, they will for the next five, ten years until the big players decide that it's okay to use attestation to lock them out to "enhance security".
1. "Hi, I'm your bank, log in just like you normally do." (Passkeys immune.)
2. "Hi, I'm your bank, do something strange I've never ever asked you to do before by uploading some special files or running this sketchy program." (Passkeys just resist.)
The problem with the expansive definition is it basically starts to encompass every kind of trick or social-engineering ever.