[juancn]

Same here, also what if I lose the device?

I can safely write down a password on a piece of paper and keep it somewhere phyisically safe.

Passkeys and 2FA are a usability nightmare if you need to recover, or all the security vanishes if you put usable recovery mechanisms for the passkey or the second factor.

[pas]

password managers do the backup for you based on how you set them up (eg. to your google drive, or to a simple SFTP/FTPS/S3 URI)

those that don't have this built-in (eg. KeePassXC) recommend using Dropbox or some external sync mechanism

but the keys are stored in a file, which you can back up.

> all the security vanishes if you put usable recovery mechanisms for the passkey or the second factor

no, not at all. it still gives you better UX, because when you use the passkey you know it's the site you want to log in to. (because there's mutual authentication.)

[jesseendahl]

>Passkeys and 2FA are a usability nightmare if you need to recover, or all the security vanishes if you put usable recovery mechanisms for the passkey or the second factor.

Most providers continue to offer email-based recovery in the case that the end-user loses access to their primary factor, regardless of whether the primary factor is a password or a passkey.

And email based account recovery does not make the security advantages of passkeys disappear, which are:

- credential that's guaranteed to be unique

- credential that's guaranteed to be strong

- credential that cannot be phished (due to cryptographic binding to the domain at the time of credential creation)

- changes the incentives for compromising servers (they're nothing worth stealing from the server -- only public keys)

- if/when an app/website transitions to retiring password-based authN, then it will entirely eliminates credential stuffing attacks

[realusername]

That doesn't really explain if I can use said website on my phone with a password if I login with a passkey on my computer

[spaqin]

Hopefully your e-mail is not tied to the passkey that you just lost.

[Telaneo]

2FA secrets can be backed up, and everyone should do that, for the same reason you'd want to do it with passwords.

Passkeys can too, but there it's even more obfuscated than with 2FA.

[izacus]

You do the same as you do when you lose your SSH key. Restore from backup and move on with your life.

Why is there so much misinformation nonsense around passkeys?

[cpburns2009]

How do you use a restored passkey from backup? Aren't they locked to the device?

[fhdkweig]

That's all I want to know. How do I restore from a backup? Specifically, a backup that I make to a medium I control, like a piece of paper or a burned CD-R in a safe deposit box. If I could get a good answer to that, I could be onboard. But from the conversations that I am getting here, it looks like only certain managers allow it, and with device attestation, they could be banned at any moment by any website with no recourse.

[nozzlegear]

> * and with device attestation, they could be banned at any moment by any website with no recourse.*

Isn't this true of any authentication method? It doesn't seem unique to Passkeys.

[fhdkweig]

Now that I think about it, you are right. But if they could ban my use of written passwords as easily as banning my use of a particular passkey device, why go through all the extra hoops to just be as vulnerable as before? This seems like a whole lot of extra work to do that gains me nothing.

[fhdkweig]

I think it is important to explain why I and others are so reluctant to this.

In security, you identify reasonable threats. You can't protect against all of them, and some may even be contradictory.

When I get a call on my phone that says "Potential Spam", I have never even once in my life decided to run over to my list of passwords and hand them over to the President of the Spanish National Lottery. Not even once.

But on many, many occasions I have dealt with a simple system that was replaced by a more complicated one and something in that Rube Goldberg machine broke down and deprived me of access to money, email, even a parking permit to my office.

Passkeys seem to protect against the former case that has never happened to me, while increasing the chances of the latter that has happened way too often.

[nozzlegear]

I don't think the goal of passkeys was ever about making it easier to back them up or protecting you from websites that could ban you. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) the goal was always to make it nigh impossible for attackers to phish your credentials.

[nozzlegear]

If you use Safari, they're locked to all of the devices on your iCloud account, not to a single device.

[izacus]

I login to 1Password on another device and all passkeys are there, and usable.

The OSes I use where that works fine:

- Android - Windows - Linux - macOS - iOS

[juancn]

How? Where are they stored? Which password protects them? How do I back them up? How do you move them to another device? Can I print them out on paper as a last resort measure?

Nobody fucking knows.

[izacus]

Why are you making stuff up? Of course people know where they're stored in password managers and how they're synced.

[pas]

it depends on which password manager you are using. if you use Google's then it gets backed up to your Google account.

BitWarden, KeePassXC, and probably a bunch of other password managers have very thorough support for import-export, automatic/periodic backup, sync/merge, etc.

[juancn]

And that's a HUGE issue. SSH keys are easy to manage in comparison to PassKeys.

[tzs]

Are they easier to manage if you have a few hundred SSH keys?

[varispeed]

Sounds like something security services would love people to use. Instead of using wrench to extract the password - and distressed person may lose memory, they can just locate the passkey.

[msandford]

Nobody is safe from a nation-state "attack" they'll just go threaten your providers to give up your data. Passwords written on paper are probably safer than a centralized password manager for almost every circumstance other than a government coming after you.

[odux]

Papers: Safe - yes. Easy to lose/misplace: also yes.

[TeMPOraL]

Humanity having millennia of experience securing them: also yes.

[NetMageSCW]

I’d like to see them threaten Apple or Bank of America.