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I don't think it's misinformation. You may decide, on your own website, for your own users, to accept passkeys from everybody but others won't. Sadly enough i

I don't think it's misinformation. You may decide, on your own website, for your own users, to accept passkeys from everybody but others won't. Sadly enough it's a near guarantee that the less secure implementations of passkeys (the software ones, allowing cloning and backups in the cloud) are likely to be the most accepted. While actually secure implementation with the secret hidden deep down behind an HSM and never leaving it, made by smaller companies who do care about security, are likely to be rejected on the ground that it's too much of an "obscure" vendor. I already posted about it today but if you think about it it's literally insane that cloning was meant to be detectable (and detection was enforced and upon detecting a cloned key, one of the two keys would stop working) and that this feature has now been removed with the sole justification being: "Because software backups to the cloud". It is not good.

vbezhenar 3y ago
Are passkeys somehow signed by Google/Apple? I thought passkeys are like ssh keys.
- stavros 3y ago
  They are, except they have a vendor ID that allows you to tell which vendor made the device you're talking to. You can get Passkeys by any number of vendors, but any authenticating website can decide to only allow a few vendors to log in with it.
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    > any authenticating website can decide to only allow a few vendors to log in with it. That's an excellent way of telling your customers you want them to go somewhere else. What's the upside?
    - stavros 3y ago
      I'm not sure, it sounds silly to me. I guess you can mandate "secure" brands?
  - lxgr 3y ago
    Synchronized passkeys by both Apple and Google don't use that mechanism (attestation). There's also the AAGUID, but without attestation, every implementation is free to provide Apple's or Google's, should websites ever start requiring that.
stavros 3y ago
I don't understand how what you say relates to what was said. You don't need to trust Google/Microsoft for your Passkeys, you can use a Yubikey, or whatever else you want. If Google wants to only accepts its own Passkeys to log in to your Google account, that's as much its choice as any other site has for its authentication.
- danShumway 3y ago
  > that's as much its choice as any other site has for its authentication. A site having the technical ability to determine not just its authentication mechanism but how that authentication mechanism is stored is not its choice and should not be its choice and is not its business. And its a clear degradation in user freedom over passwords, a system where it's impossible for Google to dictate that you use only a specific password manager to store and sync that password. It shouldn't be possible for Google to know how I'm storing a passkey. It's not their right to decide anything about that. They've never had that right. We're not taking a freedom away from Google, we're saying that Google should not have the ability to take away a freedom that we've always had, because they're our devices and it's our login information; it doesn't belong to Google.
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    I suppose the answer is to use Apple, then? It sounds like you have something against attestation, which is a reasonable point, and Apple doesn't support attestation in their implementation of passkeys. Given the size of their customer base, that pretty much guarantees that nobody is going to be denying passkeys based on lack of attestation.
    - danShumway 3y ago
      Yeah, I wrote this comment before I knew that Apple was dropping attestation. Them dropping attestation kind of renders the entire conversation moot, practically no one is going to require it if it means cutting off the entire Apple userbase. It's good news. It's honestly kind of the best possible situation short of attestation being outright removed from the spec. My bank doesn't understand "I should be able to use real 2FA instead of a text message", but they will understand "I should be able to log in from a Mac."

vbezhenar 3y ago

Are passkeys somehow signed by Google/Apple? I thought passkeys are like ssh keys.

stavros 3y ago
They are, except they have a vendor ID that allows you to tell which vendor made the device you're talking to. You can get Passkeys by any number of vendors, but any authenticating website can decide to only allow a few vendors to log in with it.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  > any authenticating website can decide to only allow a few vendors to log in with it. That's an excellent way of telling your customers you want them to go somewhere else. What's the upside?
  - stavros 3y ago
    I'm not sure, it sounds silly to me. I guess you can mandate "secure" brands?
- lxgr 3y ago
  Synchronized passkeys by both Apple and Google don't use that mechanism (attestation). There's also the AAGUID, but without attestation, every implementation is free to provide Apple's or Google's, should websites ever start requiring that.

stavros 3y ago

I don't understand how what you say relates to what was said. You don't need to trust Google/Microsoft for your Passkeys, you can use a Yubikey, or whatever else you want. If Google wants to only accepts its own Passkeys to log in to your Google account, that's as much its choice as any other site has for its authentication.

danShumway 3y ago
> that's as much its choice as any other site has for its authentication. A site having the technical ability to determine not just its authentication mechanism but how that authentication mechanism is stored is not its choice and should not be its choice and is not its business. And its a clear degradation in user freedom over passwords, a system where it's impossible for Google to dictate that you use only a specific password manager to store and sync that password. It shouldn't be possible for Google to know how I'm storing a passkey. It's not their right to decide anything about that. They've never had that right. We're not taking a freedom away from Google, we're saying that Google should not have the ability to take away a freedom that we've always had, because they're our devices and it's our login information; it doesn't belong to Google.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  I suppose the answer is to use Apple, then? It sounds like you have something against attestation, which is a reasonable point, and Apple doesn't support attestation in their implementation of passkeys. Given the size of their customer base, that pretty much guarantees that nobody is going to be denying passkeys based on lack of attestation.
  - danShumway 3y ago
    Yeah, I wrote this comment before I knew that Apple was dropping attestation. Them dropping attestation kind of renders the entire conversation moot, practically no one is going to require it if it means cutting off the entire Apple userbase. It's good news. It's honestly kind of the best possible situation short of attestation being outright removed from the spec. My bank doesn't understand "I should be able to use real 2FA instead of a text message", but they will understand "I should be able to log in from a Mac."