Do you people trust companies with passkeys?

I feel like big tech have started pushing for passkeys really hard lately. Microsoft has been asking me if I want to switch to passkeys pretty consistently. Google just automatically brings up the passkey registration fingerprint scan system dialogue every single time I’ve been signing in on Android. Without even asking if I want a passkey or not, it just does it without saying anything. I think the intention is pretty clear, an unknowing person sees the completely random fingerprint scan dialogue, doesn’t think much of it, scans their fingerprint, a passkey gets created automatically.

Well, I fell for their trick. I’ve been avoiding the passkey dialogue pretty consistently for a while now, but just now I was signing in while distracted and accidentally tapped my finger on the scanner by reflex on the prompt. I guess I have a passkey now. Yay.

I did some digging on my Google account settings and the internet, and I couldnt find a way to completely remove the passkey. It seems you can only disable the use of passkeys, but the passkey itself remains. There is also a setting called “Skip password when possible”, which is clearly what has been causing the non-stop passkey prompts. It’s on by default. It’s a shame I’m only aware of it now that its too late.

Theoretically, the passkey standart itself should be private and secure. Throughout the process, the biometric information used for the cryptographic challenges never leaves the device, and the server only gets access to a signature that has been signed with the client’s private keys that it can use to authenticate but can’t derive the private keys back from because of complicated math I didn’t spend enough energy to understand. Google automatically syncs the passkeys with its private keys with E2EE in the Google Password Manager tied to the account, which is where I start to get uncomfortable because I can’t bring myself to trust Google with E2EE.

What do you people think?

OQB @MrKoyun@lemmy.world

  • 8uurg@lemmy.world
    3·
    8 hours ago

    I use passkeys via KeepassXC (on Windows & Linux) and KeepassDX (Android), in which case Passkeys are essentially an upgrade:

    1. Since I use a password manager anyways, the difference in where they are stored is nil.
    2. As I use KeePass databases I remain in control.
    3. Auto-fill is in my experience more flaky than passkey prompts, though it would be nice if KeePassXC could be a native provider, like KeePassDX is on Android nowadays.
    4. Passkeys are generally more secure, as the key itself never leaves the device (only a challenge is performed to verify ownership of said key) unlike passwords. Passkeys also tend to be longer than passwords.

    The only downside is that you need access to the database to login - unlike with passwords where it is cumbersome, but still reasonably possible to enter it manually.

    I wouldn’t want my keys to be wholly linked to my device (problematic if I lose it, or it breaks) or be reliant on Google’s - or other big tech - password managers either.