Ricky Mondello (@rmondello@hachyderm.io)
hachyderm.io
If you actually read the “Passkeys are a trap. Do not use them.” post going around, you’ll find a transparent attempt to clumsily string together a conspiracy. The post is predicated on the idea that a feature of WebAuthn called “attestation”, which is only used in high-assurance and usually corporate scenarios, and usually with physical hardware security keys, will be leveraged to hurt people, somehow. The post posits that a website like X will bait and switch users: first, you get a passkey. Then, later, scary “attested” passkeys! This simply isn’t possible to do because attestation isn’t supported on the web for mass market, consumer authentication. Attestation for passkeys (software-based, syncable credentials) is antithetical to their mass market goals, and would freeze out independent, non-corporate-backed credential managers. It’s an explicit non-goal of the designers of passkeys, who work together in a forum anyone can join. And trust me, websites and apps like banks repeatedly asked for attestation at the beginning of the industry’s passkey journey. The platforms, browsers, and credential management apps have held firm that the goal of passkeys is reducing phishing and **not** some kind of trusted computing scheme. (And I will note: over my dead body!) Besides the theory of the case being fundamentally wrong, there are several things that make the post disqualifying in terms of arguing something useful or important in the realm of security, privacy, and user authentication: 1. Intentionally presenting things that are complicated as inherently suspicious. (Delivering security by design can be complicated, yes!) 2. Describing TOTP as a “great solution” for adding security to a password-based account. When the most common threat model on the web is phishing (a word the post never mentions!), TOTP hardly buys you _anything_. TOTP is phishable. 3. Seeming to be unbothered by how many logical leaps are being taken without actually understanding the topic being discussed. There are bad things happening in tech and untrustworthy people and companies do exist, but they’re largely in the AI space, not the “let’s stop people we love from getting compromised through phishing” space.
  • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org
    1·
    2 hours ago

    Attestation for passkeys (software-based, syncable credentials) is antithetical to their mass market goals, and would freeze out independent, non-corporate-backed credential managers. It’s an explicit non-goal of the designers of passkeys, who work together in a forum anyone can join.

    And trust me, websites and apps like banks repeatedly asked for attestation at the beginning of the industry’s passkey journey. The platforms, browsers, and credential management apps have held firm that the goal of passkeys is reducing phishing and not some kind of trusted computing scheme.

    Isn’t this exactly what Microsoft Authenticator app does now? MS requires its own app to log in to corporate outlook accounts, and does not support TOTP and other password managers any more. So, authentication is more and more linked with identification of the user, and attestation. For example, the backup method is a phone call, which requires the user to reveal their phone number to Microsoft. And a future version of the MS authenticator app could easily require to add fingerprints, or facial recognition.

    This simply isn’t possible to do because attestation isn’t supported on the web for mass market, consumer authentication. Attestation for passkeys (software-based, syncable credentials) is antithetical to their mass market goals, and would freeze out independent, non-corporate-backed credential managers.

    The argument is there that requiring attestation would harm mass market adoption. This might be true for some optional services. But it is not true for those services that a lot of people simple have come to rely on to organize their daily life - Google Mail, MS Outlook for work mail, things like DHL parcel delivery, public transport, and so on. These services are in 2026 not optional any more, and the corporations providing them are pushing hard to identify and attest users.

    Another case where this has been happening if for example the German national train network, which requires for full usability and getting discounts to use its app, and which requires a user identification for any payments. The net effect is that you can hardly use the train without being fully traceable. This isn’t very nice if you are a normal citizen in a democracy, but becomes quickly dangerous if you are member of a minority group in a country governed by the nationalist far right or an authoritarian government.