Technology

You can use Bitwarden to store passkeys. Not sure if the self hosted solution has support for it yet though.

I currently use Syncthing to keep my Keepass database updated on my phone, laptop, and home server. Any change anywhere is instantly sent directly to the other 2 devices.

corporate PR person instead of a real security expert

That's called an advertisement.

Many websites only allow creating a passkey on mobile for example. I also created passkeys on quite a few sites that straight up removed the feature a few days after. I also never found a site that let you completely remove password authentication after adding a passkey.

Passkeys work like a public/private key pair you’d use to secure SSH access to a server. You give the website a public key that corresponds to a private key generated on your local device. Unlike a password it’s not feasible to brute force and there’s nothing you have to remember which makes it more convenient for you to use. If a site is hacked and they gain access to the public passkey you use to authenticate, it can’t be used to authenticate anywhere.

It’s not really an alternative to a password manager, because you can use a password manager to generate and sync a single passkey between all your devices. In fact 1Password is a big proponent of passkeys and even maintain a big directory of sites that use passkeys.

Passwords are known (or accessible in a password manager) by the user and the user gives one to a site to prove they are who they say they are. The user can be tricked into giving that password to the wrong site (phishing).The site can also be hacked and have the passwords (or hashes of the passwords leaked), exposing that password to the world (a data breach).

With passkeys, the browser is the one checking that it's talking to the right site before talking by making sure the domain name matches. Passkeys also don't send a secret anywhere but instead use math to sign a message that proves they are the returning user. This security is possible because there is a public key and a private key. The user is the only one with a public key. The authenticity of the message is guaranteed by math by checking it with the public key that the user provided to the site when they registered their passkey. The site doesn't need access to the private key that the user has to verify the message so there's nothing sensitive for the site to leak.

In practical terms, instead of having to have your password manager autofill the username and password and then do some kind of second factor, it just signs a message saying "this is me" and the site logs you in.

It's probably overkill for most people but I would love to have a system that lets me choose what combination of factors together work to login rather than just 'password and something else'. Something like A,B,C are on the account and you can use A+B or B+C to login. It'd be great for those who don't necessarily want to trust SMS-based one-time passwords (due to SIM swapping, theft, etc) if we could require something else along with it.

That said, the way passkeys are typically used satisfy multiple factors at once:

Password to unlock your password database that stores your passkey: something you know, the password + something you have, the database

Biometric to unlock your phone that has your passkey: something you are, fingerprint or face + something you have, the phone

Years ago I worked for a company whose servers were in a highly secure facility. I had to pass through a “person trap” to get in, which required three independent things to get through: something you have, something you know, and something you are.

Imagine a booth about the size of a phone booth, with doors on both sides. To open the outer door you need a card key. Once inside the outer door closes. To open the inner door you need to put your hand on a hand scanner, then enter a PIN. Only then will the inner door unlock and let you inside. I was told that the booth also weighed you and would refuse to let you through if your weight was something like 10% different from your last pass through. That was to prevent other people from piggybacking through with you.

Lots of people think that’s all overkill until I explain that it’s all to ensure an authorized person, and nobody else, could get through. A bad actor could steal my card key & might guess my PIN, but getting around my hand scan & weight would be extremely difficult.

The closer we get to this sort of multi-layer authentication with websites the happier I am. I want my bank account, etc. protected just as well as that data center…

Passkeys are protected by either your device's password/passcode (something you know) or your device's biometrics (something you are). That provides two factors when combined with the passkey itself (something you have).

The benefit of the password is only available if you know your password for your accounts or if you have a password manager. People can only remember a limited number of passwords without resorting to systems or patterns. Additionally, with many accounts now knowing the password is not enough to log in, you must either be logging in from an existing device or perform some kind of 2FA (TOTP, SMS, hardware security key, etc). So you already need to have a backup device to log in anyways. Same with a password manager: if you can have a copy of your vault with your password on another device then you can have a copy of your vault with your passkey on another device. Nothing gets rid of the requirement to have a backup device or copy of your passwords/passkeys if you want to avoid being locked out.

it's objectively a downgrade to have to get my phone out just to sign into youtube. i broke my phone screen and couldn't sign into my damn bank until i got it fixed because they making me verify with a text. bullshit world these days

That adds nothing to the conversation.