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I feel we're powerless to stop this, since it's an extremely easy sell to normal users. The average iPhone user wouldn't think once, let alone twice, about clic
by ghusto 4y ago
I feel we're powerless to stop this, since it's an extremely easy sell to normal users. The average iPhone user wouldn't think once, let alone twice, about clicking OK on that shiny new doodad-app, and that's all the critical mass they need.
Even if they _were_ to think twice, what are the feasible alternatives? A password manager where you generate passwords for each account? Sure, I do that, you probably do that, but good luck getting your grandma to do that.
This is all super-bad because once it becomes unavoidable, Apple controls _your_ access to everything digital. Apple. Let that sink in. This is the company that backed down on encryption when the FBI asked them to. The company that has stronger device lock-in than any you could imagine.
Am I freaking out unnecessarily? Is my reasoning flawed? Genuine question!
- stavros 4y ago> Am I freaking out unnecessarily? Is my reasoning flawed? Yes, very much so. I don't know about Apple's thing specifically, but WebAuthn is decentralized and open. Basically how it works is that you have a private key and use that to log in to a site, no other servers or anything else required. I don't know what Apple's implementation specifically has changed, but if it's based on WebAuthn, it can't be much. Overall, though, if WebAuthn becomes more widespread through this, it's a huge win for everyone involved, as it's more secure than passwords, easier to use, faster, more usable, and more private.
- ghusto 4y agoIsn't it the case that this key is stored in your Keychain though? Keychain data lives on Apple's servers, no?
- stavros 4y agoI'm not sure where this specific key is (in Apple's implementation), but WebAuthn doesn't care where the key lives. Mine is in a Yubikey, I think/hope that will work, if the implementation is "plain" WebAuthn.
- ghusto 4y agoI'm not sure either, but going on how Apple implementations that I _do_ know about, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it won't be something you can directly control, like a Yubikey.
- stavros 4y agoI hope not, given that Apple was one of the WebAuthn supporters, but I can't say I don't somewhat share your concerns.
- illiac786 4y agoI agree we won't be able to stop it, but on the up side I think that it will reach a critical mass and apple will get forced to make it interoperable with other platforms. But between introduction of this feature anf it becoming Cross-Platform, years will go by...