Posted by ColinWright 4 days ago
I’ll also add. I don’t have a good mental model for what a passkey is or how it works. And again, like most users if I don’t really understand what’s going on I’m just not gonna bother with it. For all the complexity that it takes to implement secure login with a username and password, most of it is hidden from the user, with passkeys it feels like they’re shoving all the complexity front and center, but not explaining any of it.
So the motivation for why big tech wants them is clear. They've just not managed to make a compelling case for why anybody else should want them.
The only way pass keys become a widespread thing is if they force the issue by removing password authentication, and I don't see that happening any time soon.
This is what I've figured as well, and even if my password manager claims "eventually we'll support it, once it's available" (https://blog.1password.com/fido-alliance-import-export-passk...), I've been putting it off until the implementation is actually in place.
But the question is when that'll be. Last I've heard about the whole "Risk of lock-in from export blocking" is:
> The general vibe is supportive and language has been added to this effect, though it looks like we haven't done a public working draft in some time so I don't think that's externally visible yet. Also usual caveats about in-progress work subject to change.
https://github.com/fido-alliance/credential-exchange-feedbac...
I guess time will tell. But for now, considering the history of lock-in on the web, it's best to stay away from Passkeys for now, until they figure out a proper way of avoiding it.
The rest of the platforms give you zero ability to export or back up your passkeys, which makes them worse than useless.
Have they shared any details about if this is actually cross-provider/platform import/export? I feel like if Apple doesn't outright share those details, they're talking about import/export within the Apple ecosystem.
Standards themselves:
Maybe I missed something?
> Q: Are stored passkeys included in Bitwarden imports and exports?
> A: Passkeys are included in .json exports from Bitwarden. The ability to transfer your passkeys to or from another passkey provider is planned for a future release.
https://bitwarden.com/help/storing-passkeys/#passkey-managem...
But I'm not sure I understand the last part, how is the "ability to transfer your passkeys to another passkey provider" planned for a future Bitwarden release, if the Passkeys are already included in the export data? Wouldn't that be up to other Passkey providers to implement the import? Or is the export data not complete enough for an import?
The real test will be, how easy is it to move passkeys from say 1Password to Keepass XC (open source). It’s on my todo list.
For now, 1P’s passkey support appears to work quite well with all the sites I’ve tried. I’ve got multiple devices (Linuxes, macOS, Windows) and passkeys just work. I like the fact that 1P is cross platform, but after all it too is proprietary.
AFAIK, there is no export from 1Password with Passkeys yet, so maybe better to put it in your calendar to check back in 6 months or so.
> passkeys just work
Yeah, I'm not doubting that, but I cannot reasonable base my core authentication on something that locks me to one service, that just feels to irresponsible. Hence the wait for proper import/export before spending any time on this :)
I know passkey vendors will say they’re working to make interoperability easier in 2025, and that’s true. Equally the number of users who’ll take advantage of this interop will be a rounding error. The net effect will be even more platform entrenchment.
One of the couterpoints here is that while good security might have you adopt one password manager vendor, that vendor is not necessarily the same as your platform vendor. Traditionally this is a way to fight vendor lock in.
With passkeys, the concern is that the platform vendor will become the password manager for a lot of people … Android users will use Google’s built in password mgmt tools, iOS users will use Apple’s. This makes switching that much more difficult.
I really see this language around passkeys a lot.
How is losing your phone, phone breaking, etc considered an edge case?
It’s common enough that Apple has a whole app called Find My.
Phones falling into toilets led to a whole meme about putting them in rice to fix them.
And even before Find My existed as an app Apple had equivalent functionality available online within a couple of years of the iPhones introduction.
I mean, that's what Microsoft is doing here, no? They're changing their password manager to only accept passkeys, not passwords and to block off autofill functions. Granted, right now they're the only vendor to do this, but that's a pretty risky precedent to create.
If anything this seems a move to get users to use more Edge than to use more Passkeys.
Passkey is convenient for log in (and also - quick) but worst case scenario I still have passwords. I wouldn’t trade in passwords completely but I prefer passkeys to OTPs.
Worth my point for this emphasis.
Can concur.
In practice, unfortunately the UX gains are not realized because interoperability is unsolved, because vendors have little motivation to solve it and eliminate the lock in.
> When I click “add key,” three different bits of software compete for my attention.
> First up is the password manager, offering to store a passkey. (This is the first time passkeys have shown up in this process – you can begin to see how a casual user might be getting confused.) I don’t want the password manager to be involved in this case, so I dismiss the window.
> Next up, a window appears from macOS asking me if I would like to use TouchID to “sign in” (to what? – I am already signed in to the website) and to save a passkey. Again, note the different terminology. When I dismiss that window, it is time for the browser to have a go, offering me four ways to save a passkey, including finally the option to store it on the hardware token. I insert the USB key and proceed.
> I think we can all agree that this is a confusing experience, with three different systems fighting to be the One True Place To Store Passkeys, along with the inconsistency of terminology (passkeys or security keys) and use cases (password replacement or strong second factor?)
> It’s like every piece of software wants to “help” but there is noone looking at the system-level behavior where these different bits of software interact with each other and the end user. I’ve encouraged my wife (a social scientist not a computer scientist) to adopt a password manager and 2FA, and she’s very willing to follow my lead, but the confusion of terminology and bewildering arrays of options frequently (and understandably) leads to complete frustration on her part.
I'm not sure if that has changed since years ago (when you last tried), or that that is a Dashlane thing. In any case, that's not how it is now. I've stored them in 1Password. I can use them on any 1Password-enabled browser, and on my Android. They're slightly easier than password flows, and much easier than MFA flows.
> I’ll also add. I don’t have a good mental model for what a passkey is or how it works.
It's a public and private key-pair. You keep the private key, the server gets the public key on registration. When you login the server sends a challenge. "You" encrypt it with the private key and send it back. The server uses the public key to verify and boom, you're logged in.
I then discovered SSH and how it worked, asked in some public forum why there isn't a way to log in to websites using an ssh keypair, and was ridiculed for it.
Ah well, glad times change.
In an alternative universe, the web standardized something like "tripcodes but cryptographically secure" which would keep any secrets out from servers, and we'd just be dealing with signed data.
One could always dream :)
The problem is the UX around handling the certificates. Password are nearly impossible to beat in terms of "works everywhere without requiring any support infrastructure".
But that’s only inconvenient when you want access back. Most B2C don’t care about you enough to offer those processes.
If it was just a private key that I had, then import/export would be trivial.
There's a JSON example of an export on the page. It shows nicely what's stored on your machine.
It's a non-standardized format, because a standard is still being worked on. I think most vendors are just waiting for that. The FIDO Alliance has a news message about it: https://fidoalliance.org/fido-alliance-publishes-new-specifi...
In the article they mention they are not just going to support exporting passkeys, but also passwords and other credentials. The goal is to create a secure exchange format for that. They have published drafts of the standards.
They are woefully designed and implemented, wish we just cut our losses with them and stopped pushing them.
Tuck them away in settings, not on the default login path.
Now imagine saying that sentence to a person outside tech
Except that is _not_ true, there is an entire thread of people saying they are unintuitive and hard to understand!
I also don't have a good mental model of how passkeys work. I could get informed. But why should I bother? I'm a busy person. Passwords have worked for me for more than 25 years, and passkeys seem much more fussy and inconvenient (what if I'm traveling and connecting from a random computer in an hotel/airport? I imagine I'll be expected to do something with my phone, as modern cybersecurity seems to be based on trusting everything to the phone -if it gets stolen, bad luck- but what if I have no battery?). I guess I'll have to find out if they force them on us, but if I (a CS PhD and professor) have to actively find out in order to use them, it's going to be chaos with regular users.
Not sure if Proton does the device specific stuff under the hood (and hides it well), or if they are abusing the system by simply sharing the private key over all devices? (That is misuse right? Idk, I had the same experience with BitWarden). The keys should be device specific right? That's the 2fa replacing magic.
I too, have no idea. And I too am a bit disappointed it is so difficult to understand what happens. I do believe I can just export the keys and import somewhere else (i.e. Proton <-> BitWarden), which would suggest one passkey per account... Hmmm... Also, I believe it's just Google and Apple that try to make this a walled garden, it wasn't designed to be like that.
No, they can be synched. There are different types of passkeys, synched and device-bound (for YubiKeys, etc.)
Hope this clears up the confusion (haha).
It could be, but I don't know if it is. One of the design points is that they are cryptographically un-phishable or something to that effect.
The ability to export directly conflicts non-phishability, at least in theory. I've heard conflicting information about what precisely is allowed or possible.
The idea of passkeys is that they are supposed to be tied to a hardware device. And this leads to very odd situations, like Chrome asking Windows to authenticate, and Windows having to ask for the passkey on an Android phone.
I migrated to Bitwarden around 3 weeks ago and now Chrome is no longer asking Windows to authenticate, but Bitwarden. But then Bitwarden doesn't have the passkey, so it will offer to delegate to Windows, which will in turn reach to the Android phone, unless it's one which is stored in Windows.
This are the kind of problems which arise, and for a 75 year old senior who never dealt with all this crap, this is nothing but a huge annoyance, because they simply don't understand what's going on. It was easy with username and password.
What I liked the most was username+password and a Yubikey for OTP. And for what can't or no longer wants to deal with Yubikey, I've moved to app-based OTP. And now I'm starting to get forced to move to passkeys, which annoys me a bit because things are no longer so clear.
No, not really. That was more of a U2F/WebAuthn concept. Passkeys are intentionally permitted to be attached to accounts.
You can use hardware bound tokens as passkeys if you prefer, of course. However, that approach has led to a huge amount of people getting locked out of their accounts because they lost their Yubikey or reset their phone.
There are implementation improvements to be made, for sure, especially on Windows. However, that same 75 year old also won't know to look in Edge's password manager when Bitwarden says it can't find a password for a given website.
And let's be honest, that 75 year old won't be using Bitwarden or a password manager anyway, their password will be NameOfGrandkid2003 despite being told to pick a different one after the last time their account got taken over.
I wish I could use passkeys more often but when websites offer 2FA of any kind, it'll be through TOTP, and usually without providing any recovery codes either. TOTP and email+password aren't going away.
I thought Webauthn is a U2F continuation that uses them for both 2FA and login... and the login thing is called "passkey". It is not?
(I implemented U2F 2FA before and still cannot figure this out.)
WebAuthn is the JavaScript API to access the USB devices speaking U2F to the browser.
FIDO2 extends the WebAuthn API by also offering to store security tokens inside of a device's TPM, by using CTAP2 to authenticate with an external device or service, or by using good old U2F. If you're implementing it, you generally only need to deal with the WebAuthn side, the browser will take care of the rest.
You can think of Passkeys as "WebAuthn 1.1". Names like WebAuthn and U2F don't exactly attract the general consumer, so they rebranded it. The same way websites used names like "passwordless logins" when trying to describe WebAuthn+U2F, expect "passkey" seems backed by larger companies.
If you've implemented WebAuthn correctly (I doubt you actually interacted with the U2F API directly), you've also implemented passkeys.
The naming is rather confusing, mostly because a lot of websites used the wrong name for the wrong part of the process. Luckily, almost nobody acfually knows what the hell a WebAuthn is, so passkeys are the introduction to the whole stack for most people.
Just to say that we should be careful with our generalisations (I know you didn't start this one).
[1]: https://www.w3.org/TR/2019/REC-webauthn-1-20190304/#sctn-aut...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebAuthn#Reasons_for_its_desig...
Well you can decrypt your bitwarden using a Yubikey
Since I use a Mac, I will refer to my MacOS experience: Keychain and now Passwords will sync passkeys via iCloud to any other device. The end result is that you only have one passkey. Pretty seamless experience.
Can I still have a seamless experience with passkeys, or have they made that difficult? Do I need to remember to reject the dialog offering to save keys on Keychain and learn to use a 3rd party passkey service?
What am I supposed to about all the passkeys that will be needed at my multiple jobs, which I access from my own Macbook and phone? Can I use a single service, ideally open source, or do I need to use several "passkey sharing & backup managers", one for each entity and one more for my personal keys?
Trust issues aside, is there a way to get those passkeys out of there?
Suppose you want to switch from iCloud to whatever else, can you export and import those passkeys?
Other tools do, though, like KeepassXC or any other password manager really.
Any other Apple™ device.
It doesn't support passkeys yet so I'm surprised you mention it because this is what I wait for a full cross-device (for me) support, to start using passkeys
You don't understand KeePass, which is fine, but please don't make bad assumptions like these if you don't understand the underlying reasons for why a thing is the way it is.
It's like calling out why there are two dozen email clients that speak IMAP.
> You don't understand KeePass, which is fine
Haha this is so hilariously smug and condescending I have to wonder: are you the real-life Comic Book Guy?
So no one uses desktop or laptop computers anymore? Who made that decision for everyone, I wasn't consulted.
There are millions of non-technical people with jobs, where they are issued a company computer.
It's conceivable they might want to access the World Wide Web on it.
Assuming they own no other devices other than a mobile phone as you suggest, they still have at least two and probably don't want to sync anything from their personal phone to a company computer.
P.S. your comment was funnier before you added the part about the gucamole
The only difference between an imagined smooth solution is the sync mechanism and a unified client application ecosystem, neither of which is really possible without a large company behind it.
I said you don't understand how KeePass works because you refer to 3 applications for 3 different OSes (2 mobile) as if they were a confusing mix of different applications, when really they're just client implementations around a single, formalized spec. And most folks don't use both iOS and Android so really there's just your choice of KeePass desktop app and one for Android or iOS.
No one says the plethora of email client choices is confusing. This is exactly the same.
> No one says the plethora of email client choices is confusing. This is exactly the same
It's absolutely not the same. No one is manually syncing files across PCs and devices so they can retrieve mail on all of them. You have zeroed in on some irrelevant pedantry and continue to ignore the big picture.
3 different applications to access your secrets is what you focused on and now you're moving the goalposts. KeePass having 3 different client applications is what you chose to make a mountain out of, yet they're all just porcelain in front of an agreed upon standard.
Making a kbdx file accessible in Dropbox or any other cloud service does not take technical wizardry.
Kindly stop your personal attacks.
Sites kept asking me if I would like to setup a passkey, and I didn't have a good mental model for what it was either.
Turns out it's like PGP of the 1990s -- public/private key but for auth instead of email encryption.
Public/private key is not the of easiest ideas for a lay man to understand (though some YouTube videos explain it well).
All users want to know is that it keeps their information safe.
Like modern credit cards -- they use public/private keys, but the messaging is "your credit card number is kept safe," not this is based on PKI.
It’s just really hard to wrap around your head that this is the actual implementation with so many drawbacks given most people have 2+ devices, and different OSes to provide it.
I won’t use them.. although I’d have loved to use them.
When they worm they work, but I can’t trust them completely, so what’s the point? There’s no difference with a password, except that the sign-in process can be streamlined when everything works
I’m also not sure, and given that there’s no mention of transferring, backing up etc, I assume they’ll be lost forever.
I won’t take that risk. And if they require my email/password/2fa to recover, the. What’s the point.
I wanted to love them so much, but I can’t. I won’t burn myself again like with getting a new phone and loosing all your 2FA, because someone thought it’d be a good idea to make them device bound on most apps.
Ease of use is a security feature.
There is one other major difference behind the scenes: With passkeys, the service you’re logging into never has enough information to authenticate as you, so leaks of the server-side credential info are almost (hopefully completely) useless to an attacker.
And, you’re likely to loose access to your service. It’s like would you rather loose your pictures forever, or have them copied by someone
I think Facebook does the same thing when logging in with a password.
It’s been crudely done for ages by sending over a hashed version of you password when submitting a form.
Not the exact thing, but still.
What is the problem they’re trying to solve? I’m not sure to be honest. Is it leaked passwords/keys? No difference there, as all passwords are unique anyway with a password manager.
Is it ease of use? I hoped so too.. but nope.
Is it anonymity? I hopes so too, but just like “hide-my-email”, apps will detect it, and require all other missing info such as your real email, name etc.
I have Bitwarden for personal and now 1Password for work, so might hit the issue at some point.
For example, nearly every visit to my Amazon orders page I am now greeted with a nearly full screen modal browser popup letting me know about passkeys and why I should switch to them RIGHT NOW. I politely declined - the first thousand times. I don't know if this is a site or browser issue and frankly I don't care anymore. It's spam at this point and I want nothing to do with it.
My hesitancy was rooted in concerns about potential issues pretty much what you just described so glad to know I was right.
Seems like passkeys use a very simple model where you are using a single device with a single browser or are somehow syncing across devices with some cloud service - and from your description it sounds like that doesn't even work.
No thanks - I'll stick with passwords. Did everyone forget about hardware tokens which are device and OS-independent and rely on no external infrastructre?
Unlike passwords, you can have multiple passkeys per account. You can have 5 passkeys for your amazon account if you use your amazon account on 5 different devices. If you lose device 4, or if it gets stolen, you can just delete passkey 4. The other ones are safe.
Or, you can use a syncing service like a password manager. Both solutions work!
If giant tech company with infinite money cannot handle it, why should I have more faith in the dozens of services I use to do better this time?
You chose a worst case example and are comparing it with your best case example.
Virtually all sites have one passkey, tied to your vault of choice (Apple, Google, 1Password, etc). You make one, and you can use it everywhere.
Passkeys are a blessing for your regular Joe. No more easy phishing, and no passwords to forget. Often even no username to forget.
Apples-to-apples, passkeys rock.
I've had two regular Joes come to me because Google locked them out of their accounts (plus a third one with Apple) and they had important emails they couldn't get to. The "solution" in all cases ended up being a total loss and starting from scratch.
Now when Google locks them out of their account with no recourse (or, more likely, when their phone dies without backup) not only do their lose their email, but also every other service they ever signed up for.
Passkeys may be better when everything works right, but password managers are miles ahead when something goes wrong.
If regular Joe configured a TOTP and then ignores the huge warnings about not saving the backup codes, are you going to blame the service or him?
When Google and Apple block you, you stay blocked for good regardless of how many backup measures you provide. An Apple representative literally told me once that I needed to provide the phone number of the thief who stole my brother's phone if I wanted to regain access to iCloud; Google asked for my password and backup email only for their system to say "that's not enough to let you in, but there are no other methods so you're SOL".
Even in more "normal" situations, how much do I need to pay to get someone at Google to check my identity (possibly with official ID) and restore my account? Answer: None, because that's not a service Google offers - you can try to sign up for a paid plan, but even then there's no guarantee that they'll listen to you.
Any system that depends on FAANG companies is a system where you can find yourself locked out without recourse. I definitely blame the service.
Yes, that sucks. I have an old account at a FAANG they won't allow me to log in to despite me knowing the current password, my old passwords and the old e-mail. But it is partly my own fault because I changed the e-mail and phone number to a fake one.
I will say that getting locked out (= banned) by Google or Apple usually means you're doing something odd or even seedy. Of all the regular people I'm acquainted with, it hasn't happened to anyone, ever. And that's gotta easily be 100+ people. However people like dropshippers, grey hats, OF models etc etc any people with irregular cash flows or e-mail traffic definitely run a risk.
- I want to be able to share passwords for accounts with my family (some, but not all of them)
- I want to be able to load up my login information from whatever device I am currently working on; my phone, my home computer, my work computer, my wife's phone, etc
- I don't want to risk my phone breaking and losing access to all my accounts
Something like 1Password or Bitwarden fits all of that perfectly.
It's tied to vendor lock in. Which increases the ability of companies who develop certain technologies for the masses to increase the friction of interacting with things outside of the ecosystem. The argument is that if a user is unable to use an alternative, by hook or crook they will pay increasingly high subscriptions to access the services provided by that ecosystem. This increases a number on a spreadsheet, the only true compelling argument one could say
If you're referring to the inability to transfer passkeys across systems, that should be improving soon.
https://blog.1password.com/fido-alliance-import-export-passk...
https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/06/apple-previews-new-...
[0] https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/issues/10407#iss...
Then _soon_ I might reconsider using passkeys.
I'm not making changes to my security workflows now based on promises that the lock-in potential will be reduced as some unspecific point in the future.
> - I want to be able to share passwords for accounts with my family (some, but not all of them)
This, but for another reason. To all those "I can do this with Keepass/Bitwarden etc", how can you share your Netflix password with your parents 100 miles away to use it in their smart TV? You cannot and will never be able to do it. Yes, passkeys improve security in some contexts but also tighten the grip of service providers.
I'm not sure that's a good example. I thought you currently only need to share your password if you want to let them use your Netflix account on their computer/phone/tablet. If you are just trying to set them up on their smart TV wouldn't you simply have them install the Netflix app on their smart TV, launch it, hit sign in, and then tell you the 8 digit confirmation code from the app, and then you would go to netflix.com/tv2 on your computer/phone/tablet, enter that code, and use your credentials to confirm?
So let's change it to you want to let your parents use your Netflix on their computer/phone/tablet. Netflix doesn't currently support passkeys, but we will assume they will at some point.
What you would do is something like this.
1. Tell them your Netflix account name.
2. Have them go through Netflix's procedure for logging in on a device that does not have a passkey when you have no other devices available that do have a Netflix passkey for your account. They are almost certain to have some way to do this.
3. Once they are logged in they can add a Netflix passkey to that device.
I doubt streaming services are looking to make passkeys the only way to authenticate devices though. Too much competition, and too many valid use cases for use outside of a personal device.
Like the millions of "terms of use" breached by the exact trillion dollar companies pushing for passkeys (Google, Microsoft) while training their AI models? Sounds like terms of use are entirely irrelevant in the first place.
Then see what happens if meta downloads an entire library and trains their AI with it.
Meta just figured the fine is worth the leap ahead in AI training, and I kind of agree.
Since when "you are not supposed to do it" works? :) Most videogames cannot be freely copied or modified/tampered with, according to their ToS; still, companies implement draconian DRMs/anticheat to block people from doing it anyway. This is the same situation.
I mean, it was an example. Replace it with an amazon account and the argument remains the same.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/develop/secur... https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2025/06/27/announc...
But one of the selling point is that they are supposed to help bog standard users be more secure. How many bog standard users do you see using a good password manager, despite how long we've been suggesting that they do. If they aren't going to use one for passwords they aren't going to use one to smooth the edges of passkeys use.
The built in password manager in iOS/MacOS also supports synchronizing passkeys across devices (via iCloud), and again, i'm not sure if you can share those passkeys between uses, but same argument as for 1password.
I’m a 1Password user. There are times I want to login with one of my personal accounts on my work laptop, auxiliary device I have, or family member’s device. On all these occasions, I’m not going to install 1Password and sync down my entire vault, just to delete it 5 minutes later. I simply reveal the password in my app and type it in. With passkeys there is no way to do this. It’s an edge case, but an important one.
I’d feel much better about passkeys if it wasn’t some mysterious thing locked away in a vault. If it’s effectively a public/private key pair, I should be able to see the private in my password manager and copy/paste it wherever I want, and however I want. If I could do this I would instantly understand what’s going on and be more accepting of it, though I’d expect I’d still run into some edge cases.
After entering your username, you select an option to use your other device to sign in and scan a QR code with it.
Are passkeys ubiquitous? It doesn’t feel that way. Tech demos are nice, but they’re just tech demos. When I’m doing my taxes I don’t want to find out I can’t download my data in TurboTax because I can’t login to my bank with a passkey via their app. Or maybe I want to use some old hardware, where the apps haven’t been updated with QR codes and passkeys, I guess I’m out of luck.
Too many edge cases. They are trying to sell passkeys as a magic way to login. I’m not going to entrust my ability to login to magic.
Also, scanning QR codes to authenticate feels very janky. Isn’t that why CurrentC failed? No one wanted to do a QR code dance with their phone.
No you don't, you want to share access, and the only way you can do it with passwords is by sharing the password itself. With passkeys you can have each person register their own passkey.
Do all using services allow this? Is it at least ad easy and straightforward as telling your trustworthy auntie your password?
I'm pretty sure I have my Android phone setup with a passkey for my Google account and also my Windows laptop.
Presuambly the same logic applies for a service that permits multiple passkeys. Each person would register a passkey on their device using the shared credential.
There in lies the issue. With passwords, it doesn't matter if the account supports multiple passwords. I can share the one I have
> Presuambly the same logic applies for a service that permits multiple passkeys. Each person would register a passkey on their device using the shared credential.
but can I simply share the passkeys without someone's permission (other than my own)?
Plus that doesn't really address allowing someone else in your family to log into your account "temporarily"; ie if you want them to check something for you.
I had this warning show up in the iOS Authenticator app like last week or something and it guides you through changing your iOS settings to instead use Edge as a password manager. As Edge is my browser of choice on my Windows PC and I already had it installed on iOS, this was a very minor inconvenience for me.
It's worth mentioning that even though I almost exclusively use Safari as a web browser on my iOS device, when filling in passwords on websites it seamlessly allows you to use any iOS configured password manager including Edge.
It's definitely a little weird that you now require Edge to also be installed for essentially the same functionally and Microsoft might be doing it to try push people to install Edge.
Edge allows multiple profiles, are all always available to store passwords? Can your IT department block the use of personal profiles if you’re logged into a company profile?
If you’re already saving passwords in an app, you’re being more secure than most users. A forced move to passkeys seems nuts when not all systems support them yet.
I’m also still concerned that passkeys seems more likely to fail the average user when they break or lose a device, compared to a decent password.
Really wish they worked on removing phone number verification before doing any other security/password thing.
Btw. this type of electronic identity solution are not Norway specific, I know all the other Nordic countries have them, and they are, as far as I know fairly popular in the rest of Europe as well.
The next step in progress is to bake in functionality that can guarantee interested parties that it is you operating the terminal at all times.
Over twenty years ago, many of us warned about the dangers of increased and unaccountable intelligence service power. We saw what the Patriot Act would create.
We joined the EFF and the ACLU, or renewed our memberships. Organizations at the time that focused more on actual deep philosophical issues and how they relate to our political world.
Obviously the Patriot Act has saved lives. Terrorist events and neglected victims are tragic and VERY emotional.
But today, immigrants and others are spending their own lives protesting the actions of ICE. Their own very limited time on this planet.
I'm not here to judge Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I'll take flak for that among liberals. Again, I'm not judging ICE. In many cases they've been falsely accused where there was clear evidence they weren't at fault.
No, what bothers me is immigrants, who already have difficult lives, and Generation Z, who have less economic security themselves, are the ones marching in the streets.
Twenty years from now, who will be working extra unaccountable and unbillable hours protesting in the streets because the DRM and secure computing systems being pushed through today are abused?
Even if most of that abuse is a show, meant to divide citizens and law enforcement. There are people out there working for free for that show.
Who will work more in the future?
And like not judging ICE, I'm not judging the countries racing and battling to deploy secure computing environments. Knox and TrustZone and TPM and whatever new things await us in the future. There are reasons both for safety and economic security I dont judge.
And there are dark patterns around software supply chain weaknesses and online safety and incentives to accelerate those issues to push through security architectures.
Other countries are doing it. I hate the fucking game theory solutions that it encourages.
But what I'm worried is that in twenty years who will be working for free because our secure computing environments are found unfair?
And unfair can be many things. Governments push values, even when it's not explicit. When I'm using my integrated cyberdeck or implants or just ambient room device, what am I missing? What is being pushed into or out of my vision or awareness?
That's twenty years in the future, what's forty years in the future? I won't be here, but you bet your ass I'm worried. Because the people who I fucking care about now working their asses off for free are being blinded about the upcoming digital wreck, like they were in 2001.
* I believe myself here, that's key.
This (or by phone) is how I've transferred: all family accounts, all small community accounts, some business accounts, many friend-shared accounts, and it's also how some people ensure accounts can be accessed if they die. It's not a small problem.
That said, passwords are actually so bad that anything would be an improvement over them. While a stealable passkey vault sync'd to your malware-infested Windows laptop is not ideal for security, it's sure better than typing your bank password into your favorite forum because you don't understand that website administrators can see your password when you type it on their site. (Not to mention phishing.)
I don't think passkeys are going to replace passwords any time soon, and I don't think freeloaders are even part of the equation here. You can share a passkey through Bitwarden just as easily as you can share a password.
Freeloaders already need to jump through hoops to share passwords and even then they're getting off easy; if streaming companies actually cared about catching freeloaders, they could stop the practice all together. What they're doing now is just signalling them that you're not supposed to and adding very minor annoyances to the mix.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/icloud-windows/icw2bab...
After you set up iCloud for Windows, you can use iCloud Passwords to access your passwords in Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge using a browser extension. You can also manage your passwords in the iCloud Passwords app.
Microsoft is just rapidly getting even worse lately.
I applaud Microsoft because a big player had to go all-in into passwordless authentication. I'm sure it won't be painless, but it might push others to adopt the approach eventually.
Hopefully this will entice people to switch to 1Password, but I’m pessimistic — it will most likely just convince people not to use password managers at all.
No idea who thought of this bad idea. Now I gotta move them all to Apple passwords or something else.
> We have partnered with 1Password to bring users a seamless plugin passkey provider integration in Windows 11.
after other details at least it does go to:
> If you are a credential manager developer, we invite you to integrate with Windows 11 to support customers in their passkey journey. To find out more about implementation detail, go to https://aka.ms/3P-Plugin-API.
The full info:
https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2025/06/27/announc...
Now with passkeys, it seems we are just throwing all those arguments overboard and are saying 1 factor (something you have, e.g. hardware device) is enough. I've not read anywhere a good argument why.
Sometimes people have been arguing that the passkey should still be locked into e.g. another password manager with password, but that doesn't seem to be the case with most implementations, am I missing something?
That greatly reduces your risk if/when credentials gets leaked from the site in question. Public keys are meant to be public, and worthless by themselves.
As for your private key, that usually ends up in a secure enclave or similar HSM, which in turn is protected by a pin code and face or fingerprints.
The private key then becomes "something you know", and your biometrics are "something you have".
Think Trusted Computing. Soon it will be impossible to log in to some media streaming platform, for example, if you don't have a passkey sanctioned by an OS with a TPM. Then everything will be locked in and the only flaw will be our eyes and our ears.
HSM ensures that the device is actually the device it claims to be, as the key cannot leave the device, and by coupling it with biometrics, which is authentication, you prove to the device you are who you claim to be.
So by the device authenticating you, the device by extension can authenticate you against the remote site using a cryptographic challenge.
There is no vendor lock in however. You can use a password manager like 1Password to store passkeys, or even Apples keychain supports synchronizing the passkey across devices (including windows). KeepassX also supports passkeys, so it’s not limited to official vendors like TPM.
As for HSM, you can also use something like a Yubikey.
I was wondering why I couldn't just use a client cert (or better yet my ssh keys) and figured it would be something like that. It turns out I was right to invest zero time or energy figuring it out.
https://www.yubico.com/blog/10-things-youve-been-wondering-a...
https://www.yubico.com/resources/glossary/fido-2/#:~:text=Wh...
And yes, nitpicking :)
You literally leave your fingerprint on every surface you touch, and faces can be covertly photographed.
But other than that I agree. Especially now that these synchronise with iCloud, BitWarden, etc seems a no brainer you can just steal these and access everyone’s accounts in many cases with no extra 2nd factor.
This confuses me too.
That was my initial reaction too. I think the assumption is that the second factor is what-ever you use to unlock your device (a “something you know” if that is a password/pasphrase or “something you are” if that is biometrics).
I'm not convinced any of it is as more secure than user+pass as is being claimed. passkeys being device/AU dependent adds a bit of hardship to someone trying to hack your account, but people seem to be suggesting sharing passkeys between devices/AUs using their pasword managers which nullifies that effect?
That said, I don’t like them. I don’t really understand what happens when I run into edge cases, and that makes me nervous. That’s also true for 2FA in many cases.
So far my only passkey is for Amazon, I felt tricked into it, which I’m not happy about, though my password also still works. I’m opposed to this about as much as forced 2FA. I understand the security aspect, it Gmail randomly started to use their mobile app for 2FA, and now I’m afraid if I delete the app from my phone I’ll be locked out of my account, with the potential for excessive hoop jumping to get it back.
I read an article a while ago with the ultimately conclusion that passkeys don’t offer a major benefit to people who already use long, complex, unique passwords in a password manager. If this is the case, it seems this whole push is designed for people with terrible password habits, who definitely don’t understand what’s going on with passkeys, and I expect will find out once they hit an edge case and end up in a bad spot.
Agree with your other points, the whole passkey story is undeveloped and unclear yet.
There are also times when companies change their URL. Or their app using a different URL for their auth API than the website URL. If it’s obvious, the new URL can be added to the password manager to fix this. If it’s an API the user can’t see, this is much more difficult, especially if using a 3rd party password manager, it’s basically impossible. The only thing that made me aware of this, was when Apple introduced their password management and I could see all the login data if saved from various app. All kinds of URLs that were otherwise invisible to me.
What happens to a passkey in this case? Make a new account, start over?
Definitely stick to keeping passwords and passkeys in a password manager for portability. KeepassXC and Bitwarden (which can be self-hosted) work best for this in my opinion.
More information: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/changes-...
What is Microsoft gaining from their push to passkeys? They knew this was going to piss off a lot of people, but they went ahead with it anyway. That makes me believe there's something else at play.
My experience with passkeys has been worse that my Bitwarden password auto complete, so needless to stay I'm sticking with my regular passwords on my Bitwarden (I know Bitwarden has Passkeys support. I don't want to use it)
The one with far more data gathering capability and generally less robust ability for the end user to assert control over it, and which is generally tied to a service contract that in many countries requires identity verification.
I think centralizing control is absolutely the core play for them.
Does anyone know if this kind of anti-user attestation has been or can be deployed? I really can't understand why anyone would promote passkeys in good faith if that's the case.
[1]: https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/issues/10407#iss...