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“Passkeys,” the secure authentication mechanism built to replace passwords, are getting more portable and easier for organizations to implement thanks to new initiatives the FIDO Alliance announced on Monday.

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[-] nevemsenki@lemmy.world 128 points 1 day ago

If the passkeys aren't managed by your devices fully offline then you're just deeper into being hostage to a corporation.

[-] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 3 points 19 hours ago

Not to mention Apple let's you SHARE them with airdrop.

[-] unskilled5117@feddit.org 35 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The lock-in effect of passkeys is something that this protocol aims to solve though. The “only managed by your device” is what keeps us locked in, if there is no solution to export and import it on another device.

The protocol aims to make it easy to import and export passkeys so you can switch to a different provider. This way you won’t be stuck if you create passkeys e.g. on an Apple device and want to switch to e.g. Bitwarden or an offline password manager like KeyPassXC

The specifications are significant for a few reasons. CXP was created for passkeys and is meant to address a longstanding criticism that passkeys could contribute to user lock-in by making it prohibitively difficult for people to move between operating system vendors and types of devices. […] CXP aims to standardize the technical process for securely transferring them between platforms so users are free […].

[-] nevemsenki@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

That's between platforms though. I like my stuff self-managed. Unless it provenly works with full offline solutions I'll remain sceptical.

[-] darklamer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 day ago

I like my stuff self-managed.

Bitwarden / Vaultwarden is a popular available working solution for self-hosting and self-managing passkeys (as well as passwords).

[-] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 2 points 17 hours ago

TBH I don't see a reason why something as simple as a password manager needs a server, selfhosted or not. I don't get the obsession with syncing everything, so would rather stick with normal KeepassXC.

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[-] Gutless2615@ttrpg.network 61 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Literally just use a password manager and 2/MFA. It’s not a problem. We have a solution.

[-] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 42 points 1 day ago

Actually, it is still a problem, because passwords are a shared secret between you and the server, which means the server has that secret in some sort of form. With passkeys, the server never has the secret.

[-] Gutless2615@ttrpg.network 9 points 1 day ago

The shared secret with my Vaultwarden server? Add mfa and someone needs to explain to me how passkeys do anything more than saving one single solitary click.

[-] 4am@lemm.ee 22 points 1 day ago

When a website gets hacked they only find public keys, which are useless without the private keys.

Private keys stored on a password manager are still more secure, as those services are (hopefully!) designed with security in mind from the beginning.

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[-] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 day ago

Pass keys are for websites such as Google, Facebook, TikTok, etc. And then they go into what is currently your password manager or if you don't have one, it goes into your device. You still have to prove to that password manager that you are, who you say you are, either by a master password of some sort or biometrics.

Best password manager is offline password manager.

KeepassXC makes a file with the passwords that is encrypted, sharing this file with a server is more secure than letting the server manage your passwords

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[-] huginn@feddit.it 25 points 1 day ago

Never forget that technologically speaking you're nothing like the average user. Only 1 in 3 users use password managers. Most people just remember 1 password and use it everywhere (or some other similarly weak setup).

Not remembering passwords is a huge boon for most users, and passkeys are a very simple and secure way of handling it.

[-] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 day ago

I work for multiple organizations. The majority of which have a Google sheet with their passwords in that are

      c0mpanyname2018! 

Those that aren't are

       pandasar3cute123? 
[-] echodot@feddit.uk 2 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

At one point the organization I work for had a password that was literally Password-022!, guess what it was the following month?

[-] undefined@links.hackliberty.org 1 points 21 hours ago

I had to start hashing passwords and sending it to the haveibeenpwned API.

I also fight with my users over data normalization because any time I add some rule (like don’t put “SO#” as part of the value of the “SO#” field), they’re too stupid to realize the point and find some other “hack” around it.

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[-] aniki@lemmings.world 48 points 1 day ago

I'll switch when it's fully implemented in open source and only I am the one with the private key. Until then its just more corporate blowjobs with extra steps.

[-] priapus@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago

What do you means by this? What part do you want to be open source? Passkey are just cryptographic keys, no part of that requires anything unfree. There's aready an open source authentication stack you can use to implement them. You can store them completely locally with KeyPassXC for selfhost Vaultwarden to store them remotely. Both are open source?

[-] 4am@lemm.ee 21 points 1 day ago

That’s exactly how passkeys work. The server never has the private key.

[-] AsudoxDev@programming.dev 19 points 1 day ago

KeePass has passkey support

[-] devfuuu@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

And we all remember the huge drama about it because they allowed for taking the keys out and backup them up.

[-] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 2 points 23 hours ago

I think a big part of it was exporting them plain text by default. I'm in the "I know what I'm doing" camp but I guess for someone who doesn't that sort of handholdy stuff not allowing the export them without encryption stuff makes sense.

[-] huginn@feddit.it 10 points 1 day ago

Passkeys are an ancient authentication setup, have always been better than passwords and are finally getting traction.

[-] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

You can add them in vaultwarden.

[-] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 16 points 1 day ago

The real problem is not passwords so much as trusted sources. Governments should have an email account that citizens have a right to and will not go away and have local offices to verify access issues.

[-] helenslunch@feddit.nl 6 points 1 day ago

I bet the gov would love to host your email and have access to all the same info Google does...

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[-] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 17 hours ago

Whatever you're smoking, do less of that

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[-] rickdg@lemmy.world 42 points 1 day ago

If you tell corporations there’s a way to increase lock-in and decrease account sharing, they’re gonna make it work.

[-] umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 day ago

One is a new technical specification called Credential Exchange Protocol (CXP) that will make passkeys portable between digital ecosystems, a feature that users have increasingly demanded.

I.e. I can copy my key to my friends' device.

[-] rickdg@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

I believe that’s Apple talking to Google, not anything local you can own.

[-] 4am@lemm.ee 7 points 1 day ago

Read the article, it’s literally about replacing Import/Export CSV plaintext unencrypted files with something more secure.

I.e. moving your passwords/passkeys between password managers. This is not about replacing stuff like OAuth where one service securely authorizes a user for another.

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[-] DudeImMacGyver@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Am skeptical

[-] Dasnap@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago

I always feel like an old granny when I read about passkeys because I've never used one, and I'm worried I'll just lock myself out of an account. I know I probably wouldn't, but new things are scary.

Are they normally used as a login option or do they completely replace MFA codes? I know how those work; I'm covered with that.

[-] helenslunch@feddit.nl 8 points 1 day ago

It's not unreasonable at all. I locked myself out of several accounts after everyone recommended keypass for TOTP and then I lost all the keys. Getting those accounts back was a fucking nightmare.

[-] narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 10 points 1 day ago

Usually just an option in addition to a password + MFA. Or they just replace the MFA option and still require a password. I even saw some variants where it replaced the password but still required a MFA code. It's all over the place. Some providers artificially limit passkeys to certain (usually mobile) platforms.

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[-] Sl00k@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

I have passkeys setup for almost everything and on most sites I just enter my username then I get a request on my phone to sign in. Scan my thumbprint and it's good to go. It's actually so much simpler than passwords / MFA, but admittedly I haven't had to migrate devices or platforms.

I have everything setup through protonpass right now

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[-] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 1 day ago

I'm not convinced this is a good idea. Resident keys as the primary mechanism were already a big mistake, syncing keys between devices was questionable at best (the original concept, which hardware keys still have, is the key can never be extracted), and now you've got this. One of the great parts about security keys (the original ones!) is that you authenticate devices instead of having a single secret shared between every device. This just seems like going further away from that in trying to engineer themselves out of the corner they got themselves into with bullshit decisions.

Let me link this post again (written by the Kanidm developer). Passkeys: A Shattered Dream. I think it still holds up.

[-] unskilled5117@feddit.org 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The author of your blog post comes to this conclusion:

So do yourself a favour. Get something like bitwarden or if you like self hosting get vaultwarden. Let it generate your passwords and manage them. If you really want passkeys, put them in a password manager you control. But don't use a platform controlled passkey store, and be very careful with security keys.

The protocol (CXP) which the article is about, would allow you to export the passkeys from the “platform controlled passkey store” and import them into e.g. Bitwarden. So i would imagine the author being in favor of the protocol.

What is the difference between a crypto wallet and a passkey?

Is it just that a passkey has less functionality (and therfore better usability)?

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[-] narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee 9 points 1 day ago

My password manager supports passkeys just fine, across Windows, macOS, Linux and iOS (and probably Android but I haven't tried). Surprisingly, iOS integrates with the password manager so it's usable just like their own solution and it works across the system (not just in the browser).

This seems to be more about finding a standard way to export/import between different password managers/platforms?

[-] trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 day ago

Correct. The spec is about making it easier and more secure to export your passwords and passkeys when you move from one password manager to another. People are misunderstanding this as some sort of federated authentication system to share your credentials between multiple password managers at the same time, which it is not.

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this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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