Passkeys are unphishable because there is nothing to type in. And they are locked to an origin by design, so you can’t accidentally use one on the wrong domain because the browser simply won’t do it.
I use a hardware key as passkey where supported, nothing ties me to anything but those keys. Also there are OSS software managers that support them, like KeePass and friends.
Yes, my hardware keys work on my mobile devices as well.
> do you now need to maintain two keys for every service?
I do maintain multiple keys for every service. I wouldn't say it's a lot of maintenance, any more than a far more secure "remember me" box is "maintenance".
When I register for a new service, I add my hardware token on my keychain as a passkey. I sign in on my laptop for the first time for a service I'll use there more than once, I make a passkey. I sign in on my desktop for the first time, I make a passkey, maybe make a spare in my password manager. Maybe if it's something I use on my phone, I'll make a passkey there as well when I sign in for the first time. When I get around to it, I'll add the spare hardware token I keep in a drawer. But its not like "I just signed up for a new service, now I must go around to every device and make a new passkey immediately. As long as I've got a couple of passkeys at registration time, I'm probably fine.
Lose my laptop? Its ok, I've got other passkeys. Lose my keys? Its ok, I've got other passkeys. My laptop and keys get stolen at the same time? Its ok, I've got other passkeys.
As also mentioned elsewhere in this submission, it doesn't matter how often autofill breaks/works. There are two cases where it breaks: The accounts not showing up in the password manager modal, and the website autofill not working. The first is what prevents phishing, the second doesn't really matter to prevent phishing or not.
The idea is that if your password manager doesn't show the usual list of accounts (regardless if the actual autofill after clicking the account works or not), you double-check the domain.
Yes, the idea you are presenting is that the human being must manually check for mistakes. As should be clear by now, this idea does not work at scale. Passkeys will automate and enforce the check, removing human error from the equation.
> Yes, the idea you are presenting is that the human being must manually check for mistakes.
Not at all? The password manager handles that automatically, have you never used a password manager before?
> Passkeys will automate and enforce the check
What happens to the passkey when the origin changes, is it automatically recognising it as the new domain without any manual input? Curious to see what magic is responsible for that
> Yes: '...you double-check the domain.' That's manually checking for mistakes.
Yes, but that's only when the origin changed compared to when you added it to the password manager. Same thing for Passkeys, won't work if the origin is different, so you double-check that the domain in your browser address bar is the correct one.
Obviously normally you don't do anything except click on the account that shows up, since the domain matches.
With passkeys there is nothing to check manually. If it works, you know it's the domain you registered on. If it doesn't work, you log in with a non-phishable auth method like emailed magic link, then register a new passkey.
You could claim that a phishing site could set up their own passkey registration system–but that still wouldn't give them access to the target's real account.
Yeah, I guess that'd work if I had a couple of accounts, but since there a bunch of them, I really need proper import/export to feel comfortable with moving to it. I just know I'd punt the task of migrating everything if I have to go account-by-account to migrate away.
Considering that today it'd add work for me today, and future work, with no additional security benefits compared to my current approach, it just don't seem worth it.
The actual URL in the browser is part of what the passkey signs. So if you go to totallynotascam.com which turns out to be some dude intercepting and passing the connection to npm, the signature would be refused by npm since it wouldn't be for the correct domain.
