[simoncion]

It is absolutely unfair to say it. Just like passwords stored in a password manager, passkeys can be copied out of the device for safekeeping. Because you can copy them out, a user can be induced to give them to someone.

I saw passkey boosters go very, very rapidly from "Passkeys are immune to phishing!" to "Passkeys are phishing resistant!" when lots of real-world people started using passkeys and demonstrated that you absolutely must have a way to back them up and move them around.

[lxgr]

> passkeys can be copied out of the device for safekeeping

You can't copy them out on at least the iOS, Android, and (to my knowledge) Windows default implementations.

> lots of real-world people started using passkeys and demonstrated that you absolutely must have a way to back them up and move them around.

Millions of people use them without being able to move them around in the way you describe.

[simoncion]

> You can't copy them out on at least the iOS, Android, and (to my knowledge) Windows default implementations.

Pardon? The official support docs disagree with you [0][1][2]. They absolutely leave the device.

Other passkey managers let them leave the device in a way that you control, but even the default ones copy them off the system they were created on.

[0] <https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6197437?hl=en&co=...>

[1] <https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/passwords-devices-iph...>

[2] Examine the "Can I use passkeys across multiple devices?" Q and its A here: <https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/passkeys-frequen...>

[fc417fc802]

That qualifies as "immune to phishing" as far as I'm concerned. No reasonable person using a reasonable implementation will ever be successfully victimized in that manner.

We need to stop pretending that padded cells for the criminally incompetent are a desirable design target. If you are too stupid to realize that you are being taken for a ride when asked to go through a manual export process and fork over sensitive information (in this case your passkeys) to a third party then you have no business managing sensitive information to begin with. Such people should not have online accounts. We should not design technology to accommodate that level of incompetence.

If you can't stop driving your car into pedestrians in crosswalks you lose your license. If you can't stop handing over your bank account number to strangers who call you on the phone you lose all of your money. If you eat rotten food you get sick and possibly die. If you hop a fence and proceed to fall off of the cliff behind it you will most likely perish. To some extent the world inherently has sharp edges and we need to stop pretending that it doesn't because when we do that it makes the world a worse place.