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Google will now make passkeys the default for personal accounts (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/technology

187 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Passkey is some sort of specific unique key to a device allowing to use a pin on a device instead of the password. But which won't work on another device.

Now I don't know if that key can be stolen or not, or if it's really more secure or not, as people have really unsecure pins.

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[–] Nolegjoe 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How does this work with checking my emails on a public computer in a library, for example? Somehow my private key needs to be shared with the library pc?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Wouldn't the private key stay in your phone and you'd be exchanging a challenge and a response?

[–] a_fancy_kiwi 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Not necessarily. I can’t imagine they’d want you to login to your iCloud or Google account on a public computer. It will probably work how Microsoft “Authenticator” works or how when you try logging in to iCloud or your Google account when you have 2FA turned on:

Type in your username and click submit on the library computer
The service on the computer tells you to look at your phone
In the background, the service sent an encrypted challenge to your iCloud account
All your devices receives a notification asking if that’s you trying to login
You pull out your phone, click yes
In the background, your phone decrypts the challenge and sends it back to the server
The server verifies its you who is trying to login and logs you in on the library computer

No sharing of keys necessary

Edit: that was just a guess and there are likely a few ways logging in can be achieved on a public computer without needing the private key on that computer. My knowledge on passkeys is surface level, I haven’t really taken the time to look deeply into them yet

[–] Nolegjoe 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If that's the case, then a bad actor could spam someone's phone with notifications. All they'd need is a username.

Or, like my mum, you don't read what the notification says and just hit 'OK'. Now you've let someone into your account without realising

[–] a_fancy_kiwi 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Shit. Good point. According to this blog at 1Password, Bluetooth can be used to have one device verify another for a service. So I guess if the public device has Bluetooth, it’s possible 🤷‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

There's more ways such as scanning a Qr code to establish a connection from the app to the computer, or by presenting a number on one device which must be entered on the other