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A consortium of companies, including the big hitters Google, Apple and Microsoft, are making another attempt to kill off the password. This time it's through a system known as Passkeys.
Passkeys work almost identically to the FIDO authenticators that allow us to use our phones, laptops, computers, and Yubico or Feitian security keys for multi-factor authentication. Just like the FIDO authenticators stored on these MFA devices, passkeys are invisible and integrate with Face ID, Windows Hello, or other biometric readers offered by device makers. There's no way to retrieve the cryptographic secrets stored in the authenticators short of physically dismantling the device or subjecting it to a jailbreak or rooting attack.
Ars Review Editor Ron Amadeo summed things up well last week when he wrote: "Passkeys just trade WebAuthn cryptographic keys with the website directly. There's no need for a human to tell a password manager to generate, store, and recall a secret—that will all happen automatically, with way better secrets than what the old text box supported, and with uniqueness enforced."
Given the nature of having the OS manage your credentials with other sites (without ever actually sending your biometric data, PIN or similar data), it becomes possible to share the same credentials across all logged in devices (think, iPhone, iPad, Mac all serviced by iCloud). Phishing sites would no longer be able to steal and re-use credentials.
It certainly sounds promising, though obviously a great deal of trust is given to the OS. What are other Soylentils' thoughts?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Sjolfr on Thursday October 27 2022, @03:34PM (7 children)
OK ... now you've done it. Challenge excepted. What tech, that M$ has copied/stolen/renamed, was not screwed up by M$?
hmmm ... this may take a while. Well, maybe the mouse; M$ copied the mouse from Xerox back in the day. Apple screwed that one up, but not for everyone.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday October 27 2022, @05:28PM (5 children)
Microsoft managed to screw up their "MS Ergonomic Mouse": by moulding it to the shape of the right hand, they made it throughly unusable for left-hand users.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2022, @05:56PM (2 children)
Lefties, AKA "Devil's Paw", are inherently evil. M$ was just trying to breed them out of the gene pool. ;-}
(Score: 4, Funny) by kazzie on Thursday October 27 2022, @07:25PM
There's nothing sinister about us lefties, honest!
(Score: 3, Touché) by Mykl on Thursday October 27 2022, @10:25PM
It's cute that you think that making it easier/more comfortable to spend more time on your computer will improve your chances of having sex ;-)
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday October 27 2022, @07:12PM (1 child)
They consistently got it right for greater than 50% of the population, though. Better than a stopped clock that's only right once a day.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Funny) by kazzie on Thursday October 27 2022, @07:23PM
[Well] over 50% of the population runs Windows on their PCs too. Not sure if they're all in the right, though. >:)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jb on Friday October 28 2022, @01:56AM
No, even that was screwed up by Microsoft.
Proper mice had 3 buttons (select, menu and adjust). Microsoft reduced that to two, pretending that users could somehow do without an adjust button.
Yes it's true that Apple made the mouse even worse by dropping the menu button as well, but that does not absolve Microsoft of its role in the race to the bottom.