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Passkeys are fantastic for the vast majority of the population. They solve oodles of problems. No more teaching ${FAMILY_MEMBER} about good passwords, password
by eddyg 10mo ago
Passkeys are fantastic for the vast majority of the population. They solve oodles of problems. No more teaching ${FAMILY_MEMBER} about good passwords, password re-use, trying to explain how to use a password manager, etc. Instead: create passkey, done. Then it's seamless login whether they're on their computer, phone or tablet.
As a tech-savvy user fully aware of the underlying machinations involved with passkeys, I greatly prefer their simple, fast login experience over: username submit password submit TOTP submit, and especially over the much-worse "we've emailed you a code" login slog.
- 201984 10mo agoIt's great until they break their phone, or spill coffee on it, or just lose it, and now they are locked out of EVERYTHING with no good way to get back in. Passwords on a piece of paper for better or worse do not have that problem.
- eli 10mo agoAndroid syncs them to your Google account and iPhone to your iCloud account by default. Which isn't a perfect solution but, again, is pretty good for most people.
- 201984 10mo agoAnd I just found out recently that you can't log into Google on a desktop without responding to a prompt on your Android phone. Which, if you broke said phone, you can't do. This is without 2fa enabled on my Google account.
- Groxx 10mo agoThere are a few alternate options like email or sms (I've used them several times, you have no option if you erase your only actively-used phone occasionally), but yeah. Google effectively forces 2FA whether you like it or not.
- eli 10mo agoI don't think this is correct
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- hshdhdhj4444 10mo agoHave you ever been locked out of your Apple account? Maybe because your kid was playing with your phone and kept entering the wrong passcode and now you’re locked out for several hours? Or because Apple detests anyone else touching your phone and you’re traveling internationally and your screen cracked and you took it to a local repair shop which in the process of replacing the screen triggered something Apple didn’t like and you’re locked out for a decade.
- ubertaco 10mo agoAnd that's great, as long as you're totally cool with access to _any_ of your accounts _anywhere_ being completely controlled by either Apple or Google.
- eli 10mo agoI was just correcting the parent post that implied the passkeys were only stored on the device. Personally I do not use that feature. I'm also pretty sure I don't have any accounts that can ONLY be accessed via passkey.
- eddyg 10mo agoOnly if they're not backing up their phone, which seems insane in this day and age. And even if they're not, if they have a computer or tablet, the passkey will still be available there assuming they share an account. You can also recover your iCloud Keychain via a designated/trusted Recovery Contact (e.g. spouse, who presumably hasn't destroyed their phone at the exact same time), or via iCloud Keychain escrow. https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/passwords-devices-iph82d6721b2/ios https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/passwords-devices-iph...
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- Barrin92 10mo ago>with no good way to get back in. which is why at the very least your email provider gives you a recovery kit to print out (the equivalent of the notebook) and if you can get back into that account you'll likely be able to get into whatever else you signed up for. There's no difference here between passkeys and any other central storage be it a password manager or a physical notebook. If you lose that access, well you're screwed. But it always beats having hotdog123 as your password for 70 different sites.
- 201984 10mo agoPassword managers can be backed up onto USB drives pretty easily, and copies can be made of paper. It's much more difficult to make comparable backups of passkeys due to all the "anti phishing" / vendor lock-in rules most platforms have.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- jesseendahl 10mo agoBoth of the major smartphone companies (Google and Apple) have pretty robust account recovery processes. Are you familiar with all the options they have? Your comment gives me the impression that you are making assumptions about what would happen, instead of doing research on how it actually works. I experienced Google's recently and it was very robust. Even before passkeys, the average user would have major problems if Apple and Google didn't have good account recovery processes.
- lazide 10mo agoHuh? I’ve seen zero implementations that work seamlessly across computer, phone, tablet - unless they are all single platform, which I have yet to see anyone actually pull off.
- eddyg 10mo agoIt's a beautifully simple experience for Apple users across all their devices. I can't speak for other platforms; I stopped helping ${EXTENDED_FAMILY} with non-Apple questions because the crap I had to diagnose, debug and deal with for Windows and Android was worse than ${DAY_JOB}.
- timmyc123 10mo agoGoogle Password Manager, Bitwarden, 1Password among many others.
- happyopossum 10mo agoThere are nearly countless ones - 1password for example works everywhere, as does Roboform, bitwarden, keepass, LastPass, nordpass, and many others. All sync seamlessly and support the major (and often minor) browsers.
- eli 10mo agoYou omitted my favorite feature: virtually immune to phishing. You can't accidentally submit a passkey to a lookalike domain. For phishing protection, passkey as a single factor is better than memorized password + TOTP/SMS two factor.
- noAnswer 10mo agoHow does the secret jump from the PC to their phone? How do they know each other? ...does the answer involve going all-in on Apple forever?
- eddyg 10mo agoiCloud Keychain (or whatever the Google equivalent is). And as I said, it's a fantastic solution for the vast majority of the population (which, coincidentally, are also not Hacker News readers).
- noAnswer 10mo agoCan you keep access if they decide to shut you down? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42350245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42350245 They closed my PayPal account for TOS violation after donating to The OpenBSD Foundation. I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.
- timmyc123 10mo agoYour credential manager provides this sync and backup capability. There are dozens of credential managers available that work on all platforms. You don't have to use the default one on any given platform. Bitwarden is my personal choice.
- spencerflem 10mo agoI still don’t like that I can’t use them on a computer that I can’t download bitwarden on. Library computer, etc. Passwords I can see myself and make the informed decision to use temporarily somewhere else.
- Too 10mo agoWhen was the last time you used a library computer, let alone logged onto a private service with it? This was a bad idea even 20 years ago. In today’s security climate, aw hell no.