this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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Could someone ELI5 (if possible) what passkeys actually are?
From my understanding it's the concept of trust. Basic passwords are complete trust that both ends are who they say they are, on a device that is trusted, and passing the password over the wire is sufficient and nobody else tries to violate that trust. Different types of techniques over time have been designed to reduce that level of trust and at a fundamental level, passkeys are zero trust. This means you don't even trust your own device (except during the initial setup) and the passkey you use can only be used on that particular device, by a particular user, with a particular provider, for a particular service, on their particular hardware.....etc. If at any point trust is broken, authentication fails.
Remember, this is ELI5, the whole thing is more complex. It's all about trust. HOW this is done and what to do when it fails is way beyond EIL5. Again, this is from my own understanding, and the analogy of hardware passwords isn't too far off.
so it's basically what a SSH key is? can I not log in to an account from my laptop if I set it up on my phone then? that seems like a massive hassle if it's the case
You setup passkeys for all your devices with biometric features. I know I have a Yubikey for my desktop, facial recognition on my phone, and a fingerprint reader on my laptop. So, I setup 3 passkeys using biometric (fingerprint or face). I also kept my password and 2FA for now because it’s all new. I wouldn’t recommend jumping in face first.
I only am using it on a few key sites and partly because I’m a web developer testing it all out. I wouldn’t advise it for the average user at the moment but it’ll mature and many password managers can store passkeys now. As it matures, I’m hopeful it becomes seamless like FaceID and fingerprint readers.