Imagine if a romantic partner said “I will send you a unique string, probably exactly 8 characters” to verify that I am your partner. You would laugh and remind them it takes less than a second to generate every 8 character combination possible.
Instead, your SO makes a key and keeps it with them at all times, and you promise to talk to them using a machine that makes secret messages only their key can decipher. For fun, they give you a key and make a machine too… Explaining this shit is complicated I’m sorry for what you’re about to read.
They send “heyy”,
You send “whatup”,
They send “send pics”,
You take one, encrypt and send the pic,
They say “huh? Wtf?”,
You remind them about the secret key,
They have no idea what you’re talking about -fail
OR
they send something in return back (which you decrypt) -success
That’s basically the same thing as authentication with a passkey oversimplified and only slightly wrong but good enough. There’s shitloads of devices that do it, yubikeys, authenticator apps, but they’re all doing that.
There. You’ve solved 90% of online fraud that begins with website(s) leaking your credentials and someone combining leaks to gain access to everything in your life via your email (including bank, socials, porn habits, whatever).
Enforcing what? It’s up to your email service to adopt the change. The way it currently works was probably okay for the early days of the internet when people had just started using emails, but now that so much private and sensitive financial information passes through your email account, it makes little sense that the same credential you use to login to your email account (email id) is also what you must use when some random website forces you to register in order to access it, just so they can send you massive volumes of unsolicited spam.
Certainly a simpler change with more potential to do good relative to the ease of enforcing a convoluted passkey-slash-usb-slash-save-this-file-somewhere-safe implementation
Then you’ve missed the point of the change entirely. Splitting email addresses into public and private-facing addresses is one thing. Reusing passwords is entirely another evin if both are related to securtity.
It’s something you pass around–like a word, but a key instead. If you’re familiar with passwords–instead of a word–imagine a key: a passkey. That’s what passkeys are. The issue with passkeys is–as you pass them around they begin to open more and more stuff; everyone is opening stuff with your key as it’s passed. So they need to be sanitized every now and then. Deposit them into a furnace and buy a new passkey. Every two to three days. If you have more questions please feel free to ask!
Okay. I think I’m understanding. A passkey is a virtual key? That we have to buy? And some company makes these virtual keys? And there’s a virtual locksmith who makes virtual locks? And you have to hire them to install them on your computer? Is this what’s going on?
I apologize. The reply you responded to was entirely satirical. It was written in frustration. From my point of view passkeys are the way to do authentication. More specifically public-key cryptography. It has a lot of desirable qualities. Governments and ‘tech platforms’ should have been using it from the start–we’ve had the software to do this since the 1980s and it was libre-software by the 1990s.
Any criticism of passkeys (as brought up in this thread) are more so applicable to the private-dictatorships that are Microsoft, Apple and Google. The contrary behavior of continuing to use these private-dictatorships whilst decrying passkeys is tantamount to hypocrisy? stupidity? To give a tiny bit of context: the quality of attestation in passkeys are also applicable to SSL-certificates, yet no one is decrying SSL-certificates. It’s also applicable to every GNU/Linux distribution and libre-software at large.
That’s to say the criticism is written from a place of ignorance. “Privacy” forums on the internet are not interested in reality. Their users are full of users with static behaviors. More often than not any questions asked in these places amount to “how can I continue doing what I was doing before? Big-corp has introduced a change I don’t like. I want to do the exact same thing on big-corp that was previously permissible.” When the factual observation is stated: “big-corp is a corporation designed for surveillance-capitalism therefore if you desire liberty and privacy whilst computing you cannot use such a corporation in any manner” it’s met with unfounded hostility, hypocrisy and lies. Any use of such software is contrary to your stated desire: digital-privacy. Even when responses illustrate how you could achieve what the OP wanted, but with libre-software and privacy-preserving-software you’re often met with: “no. I want to use Google/Microsoft/et al.” Users are lazy idiots.
Technical and correct responses are ignored whilst a flood of ignorant, emotional or status-quo enforcing responses are brought to magnified attention. I’ve abandoned restraint and started to shitpost as every one else appears to be doing.
I suppose this is all a criticism of ‘social-media’ and how it’s a waste of everyone’s time.
That’s to say the criticism is written from a place of ignorance.
The praise is also written from a place of ignorance too. People love it and they don’t know what it is. If you can’t explain it to a five year old, then you don’t understand it. And if we don’t understand, it’s a horrible idea to fork over our security to it. We don’t want to rely on a box full of ADE 651 bomb detectors.
So… Uh… What’s a passkey? The article is saying they’re pure evil. Everyone here is saying they’re good. Everyone knows what they are except for me.
What’s the difference between a passkey and a password?
https://www.yubico.com/resources/glossary/what-is-a-passkey/
Sounds like a turbo encabulator.
Also, that website is full of sand traps. Every time I accidentally mouse over something, a huge menu covers up the definition.
Imagine if a romantic partner said “I will send you a unique string, probably exactly 8 characters” to verify that I am your partner. You would laugh and remind them it takes less than a second to generate every 8 character combination possible.
Instead, your SO makes a key and keeps it with them at all times, and you promise to talk to them using a machine that makes secret messages only their key can decipher. For fun, they give you a key and make a machine too… Explaining this shit is complicated I’m sorry for what you’re about to read.
They send “heyy”, You send “whatup”, They send “send pics”, You take one, encrypt and send the pic, They say “huh? Wtf?”, You remind them about the secret key, They have no idea what you’re talking about -fail OR they send something in return back (which you decrypt) -success
That’s basically the same thing as authentication with a passkey oversimplified and only slightly wrong but good enough. There’s shitloads of devices that do it, yubikeys, authenticator apps, but they’re all doing that.
As the article states, they’re an extremely malicious solution to a problem that has better, simpler, and easier to understand solutions.
It’s also a very good solution to the “problem” of users being able to do things our corporate overlords don’t want us to do.
In short, they’re even worse malware than the ones they’re sold as protecting us from.
Enshittification manifest.
Can you give an example?
Amazon/whatever login:
Email login:
There. You’ve solved 90% of online fraud that begins with website(s) leaking your credentials and someone combining leaks to gain access to everything in your life via your email (including bank, socials, porn habits, whatever).
How do you suggest enforcing it?
Enforcing what? It’s up to your email service to adopt the change. The way it currently works was probably okay for the early days of the internet when people had just started using emails, but now that so much private and sensitive financial information passes through your email account, it makes little sense that the same credential you use to login to your email account (email id) is also what you must use when some random website forces you to register in order to access it, just so they can send you massive volumes of unsolicited spam.
Certainly a simpler change with more potential to do good relative to the ease of enforcing a convoluted passkey-slash-usb-slash-save-this-file-somewhere-safe implementation
I don’t understand what will stop the users from using same passwords for both services
Then you’ve missed the point of the change entirely. Splitting email addresses into public and private-facing addresses is one thing. Reusing passwords is entirely another evin if both are related to securtity.
It’s something you pass around–like a word, but a key instead. If you’re familiar with passwords–instead of a word–imagine a key: a passkey. That’s what passkeys are. The issue with passkeys is–as you pass them around they begin to open more and more stuff; everyone is opening stuff with your key as it’s passed. So they need to be sanitized every now and then. Deposit them into a furnace and buy a new passkey. Every two to three days. If you have more questions please feel free to ask!
Okay. I think I’m understanding. A passkey is a virtual key? That we have to buy? And some company makes these virtual keys? And there’s a virtual locksmith who makes virtual locks? And you have to hire them to install them on your computer? Is this what’s going on?
I apologize. The reply you responded to was entirely satirical. It was written in frustration. From my point of view passkeys are the way to do authentication. More specifically public-key cryptography. It has a lot of desirable qualities. Governments and ‘tech platforms’ should have been using it from the start–we’ve had the software to do this since the 1980s and it was libre-software by the 1990s.
Any criticism of passkeys (as brought up in this thread) are more so applicable to the private-dictatorships that are Microsoft, Apple and Google. The contrary behavior of continuing to use these private-dictatorships whilst decrying passkeys is tantamount to hypocrisy? stupidity? To give a tiny bit of context: the quality of attestation in passkeys are also applicable to SSL-certificates, yet no one is decrying SSL-certificates. It’s also applicable to every GNU/Linux distribution and libre-software at large.
That’s to say the criticism is written from a place of ignorance. “Privacy” forums on the internet are not interested in reality. Their users are full of users with static behaviors. More often than not any questions asked in these places amount to “how can I continue doing what I was doing before? Big-corp has introduced a change I don’t like. I want to do the exact same thing on big-corp that was previously permissible.” When the factual observation is stated: “big-corp is a corporation designed for surveillance-capitalism therefore if you desire liberty and privacy whilst computing you cannot use such a corporation in any manner” it’s met with unfounded hostility, hypocrisy and lies. Any use of such software is contrary to your stated desire: digital-privacy. Even when responses illustrate how you could achieve what the OP wanted, but with libre-software and privacy-preserving-software you’re often met with: “no. I want to use Google/Microsoft/et al.” Users are lazy idiots.
Technical and correct responses are ignored whilst a flood of ignorant, emotional or status-quo enforcing responses are brought to magnified attention. I’ve abandoned restraint and started to shitpost as every one else appears to be doing.
I suppose this is all a criticism of ‘social-media’ and how it’s a waste of everyone’s time.
The praise is also written from a place of ignorance too. People love it and they don’t know what it is. If you can’t explain it to a five year old, then you don’t understand it. And if we don’t understand, it’s a horrible idea to fork over our security to it. We don’t want to rely on a box full of ADE 651 bomb detectors.
You’re an idiot.
Are you serious?
No. Sorry.