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Passkeys are a trap. Do not use them (nonfunctional.substack.com)
submitted 2 days ago by shrek_is_love@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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[-] dessalines@lemmy.ml 29 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Despite the attention-grabbing headline, the only negative thing I can find in the article about passkeys are this section:

Attested passkeys7 are the last but most important type of passkeys you need to know about. These types of keys use what’s known as remote attestation to cryptographically verify – using the aforementioned tamper-proof cryptoprocessor that lives in all your modern devices – that you are using one of the several approved passkey managers, and not using a custom one that you vibecoded yourself and which can lie.

This is the feature that means you no longer get to make the calls about your passkeys. Fortunately, attested passkeys are not yet required on most websites.

I don't see why we should assume this hypothetical is going to happen. There is a lot of different software that supports passkeys (I use keepass for example), and going against the open standard and forcing all their users to use a specific software would basically make them unusable.

Overall every password / login style has its dangers and bad ways to use it, including passkeys. That doesn't make them "traps".

[-] miadidi@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

Ooohh, don’t think corpos and banks won’t go for that hypothetical. A lot of apps already turn haywire if you have developer options enabled, accessibility options enabled, have a specific installed or using a custom ROM. If the optional attestation is enforced by your bank that they only accept passkeys from google’s password manager or apple passwords, then using something like Keepass or Bitwarden isn’t an option.

Look… I love passkeys. They are convenient and more secure. But if a service cares about on what device and software it was created then it is pointless and just an ecosystem lockdown mechanism.

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this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2026
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