[HN Gopher] Apple Passkey
___________________________________________________________________
 
Apple Passkey
 
Author : samwillis
Score  : 490 points
Date   : 2022-06-06 18:24 UTC (4 hours ago)
 
web link (developer.apple.com)
w3m dump (developer.apple.com)
 
| pronlover723 wrote:
| How does this bode for anonymity and multiple identities?
| 
| I'm imagining a world where all PCs/Macs/Smartphones have
| FIDO/WebAuthn and there's no other way to log in. Can I setup up
| multiple IDs on my iPhone and decide which services get to be
| associated with which id? I get that supposedly iPhone (etc) will
| (may?) give out a different number to each service but they'll
| still be associated with a single account at Apple's level.
| Further, it's likely these services will ask for more info and
| Apple will give it to them.
| 
| As it is I have a different id for almost every service. I'd like
| to keep it that way.
 
  | psanford wrote:
  | FIDO logins are not shared across relying parties (sites), each
  | site gets its own (that's what makes FIDO phishing proof). If
  | you want a single identity that multiple sites know about
  | you'd, login using a third party identity provider where you'd
  | use your passkey.
  | 
  | FIDO2 resident keys do support multiple identities for a single
  | relying party (site).
 
  | dane-pgp wrote:
  | > I'm imagining a world where all PCs/Macs/Smartphones have
  | FIDO/WebAuthn and there's no other way to log in.
  | 
  | You won't have to imagine that for long, because that's the
  | world we are sprinting towards.
  | 
  | Once practically everyone has accepted and adopted this system,
  | governments (having already banned E2EE messaging apps by this
  | point) will complain that Big Tech are allowing cyber-
  | terrorists to maintain anonymous identities online and not
  | doing enough to protect the children.
  | 
  | The offices of Apple, Google, and Microsoft would then receive
  | calls from the national tax/anti-trust authorities saying the
  | government was thinking of launching an audit/investigation
  | into those companies and wouldn't it be a shame if something
  | happened to their profit margin that year.
  | 
  | Within a few months we'd see these companies all "voluntarily"
  | release software updates which add a "Citizen ID" field to
  | every FIDO interaction, with those IDs being issued by a
  | government API and verified using a bank card and facial
  | recognition.
 
| LunarCamper wrote:
| Does this explain at least some of the Okta drop in share price?
 
| babuloseo wrote:
| So they emphasized that this is going to kill "phishing" I doubt
| it.
 
| hex9893628af wrote:
| What I would like to know is if this takes off, will I finally be
| able to use my Yubikey on all the same sites that suppprt Apple
| Passkey?
 
| protomyth wrote:
| Unless I can back it up and import it into a new device from a
| competitor, then there is no way I am going to use this unless
| forced. I do not trust one company anymore.
 
  | heckyeahs wrote:
 
| here4funzies wrote:
| If this is about "[hardware devices] for generating and
| authenticating accounts" like WebAuthn FIDO et al what happens
| when I upgrade my Macbook. Do I revert back to password in order
| to associate the new private key (or hardware generate password)
| with my existing account?
 
  | stetrain wrote:
  | The keys are synced through iCloud Keychain, presumably also to
  | your new Mac.
 
| sholladay wrote:
| What I want is to use the device password instead of biometrics.
| So the device itself and its TPM are the FIDO authenticator, the
| thing I have in 2FA terms, and the device password is the thing I
| know. Personally, I feel I can better protect a password than my
| fingerprint. But I still want the benefits of 2FA and public key
| crypto where the app/website doesn't receive any sensitive
| information. I'd be okay with pressing a button to prove user
| presence. I'd avoid syncing the keypairs between devices, instead
| enrolling a new keypair for each device. I guess that last part
| could be annoying but it's pretty much how I use SSH today and
| it's not that bad.
 
| mwcampbell wrote:
| While we're talking about authentication: Once the user is logged
| in, how practical is it for native apps on Apple platforms to use
| something more secure than bearer tokens to authenticate with the
| service on each request? I'm reminded of
| https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/59704.html
 
| atonse wrote:
| My wife signed up for calm.com using Sign in with Apple. Thanks
| to this, I am not able to occasionally use her login to listen to
| the wonderful music. There's just no way in hell I'm paying the
| $60 a year or whatever they're asking to listen to a couple songs
| every now and then. In a normal setting, she'd add her login to
| her 1password and I'd be able to use Calm.com, and who knows, I
| would've grown to love it, and gotten myself a second
| subscription.
| 
| But since this experience has been so confoundingly annoying,
| Calm.com won't get a penny from me. (Not even sure I want to
| blame them... but rather how it's impossible for my wife to just
| "share" that credential with me even if she wanted to)
| 
| Not being able to share a certain type of login (for this kind of
| family sharing scenario) has really soured me on the more
| personal use cases for these technologies, even though they are
| really solid from the tech side.
| 
| Like people often say, most products are competing with Word,
| Excel, and email, authentication is competing with me just being
| able to tell a human my username and password.
| 
| Again, there are many instances where being able to share these
| credentials seamlessly between non-power users is totally legit.
| When I sit with my dad to help her log in to his patient portal
| to get some medical info. Or when my mom wants help to review her
| Verizon cell phone bill. Or when I get my wife's credentials to
| cancel a hotel reservation.
| 
| How are they going to solve the totally legitimate sharing use
| cases? Using PKI actually gives you a wonderful set of tools to
| do this (underlying implementation could be that we generate a
| temp cert that expires in 24 hours, signed by her original
| credential certificate saying it's a shared credential, etc)
| 
| I really hope these are the use cases that get more fleshed out
| before these technologies reach mainstream.
 
  | teeray wrote:
  | This sounds like exactly the dark pattern Netflix will be
  | clamoring for. "Oh gee, looks like you can't share passwords
  | anymore..."
 
  | WorldMaker wrote:
  | "Sign in with Apple" does have a very bare-bones OIDC flow in
  | the browser on non-Apple devices/browsers. That flow takes you
  | through a typical Apple Cloud login flow with Apple ID email
  | and password and usual 2FA if it's the first time on that
  | browser/device.
  | 
  | To meet bare minimum requirements sites like Calm.com often
  | only show the "Sign In with Apple" button for iOS and iPadOS
  | user agents. You can sometimes fake an iOS/iPadOS user agent
  | and get the buttons to show up and then switch the User Agent
  | back to get the boring in-browser OIDC flow.
  | 
  | As an iOS/iPadOS but Windows PC user I find it frustrating how
  | many websites intentionally hide that button in other browsers,
  | just when dealing with my own accounts.
  | 
  | I feel like Apple could maybe do a better job of education
  | here: "please don't hide the button on non-iOS/iPadOS user
  | agents". I hope Apple has strong developer education plans for
  | Passkey.
 
  | neill wrote:
  | For a business, implementing FIDO in this case seems like a
  | win. They get more lockout of password sharing, and have to
  | explicitly work to enable shared logins (if that's something
  | they want). Of course it's nice for an end user to be able to
  | share credentials, but I think long term outlook will be
  | towards businesses and applications pushing to improve their
  | user management tooling.
  | 
  | Anecdotally, in the instance you described they net the same
  | $60/yr regardless of wether you use your wife's login, so
  | they're getting more stringent access controls (though you
  | could always use the device in question, too) in line with
  | their terms of service.
  | 
  | (Would also note that my response does not cover your latter
  | points on helping users manage their accounts with their
  | presence, but without their device presence, which I agree is a
  | valid concern)
 
    | lsaferite wrote:
    | You also ignored the point that perhaps they'd have gotten to
    | like the service enough to get a subscription for themselves,
    | but refusing out of spite now.
 
  | biztos wrote:
  | Is that not a use-case for Family Sharing?
  | 
  | Apple says you can "download content" bought by other family
  | members[0], but I guess this doesn't work for subscriptions?
  | 
  | That's a real missed opportunity. I would expect them to at
  | least allow the app developer to opt in to sharing. Selling two
  | licenses into a household has to be pretty rare, whereas having
  | happy-family customers is great word of mouth. "My wife uses
  | FooApp and now I use it too!"
  | 
  | [0]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201085
 
    | Someone1234 wrote:
    | Most IAPs and non-Apple subscriptions don't work with Family
    | Sharing, and the few that do there's no way to tell before
    | you buy.
    | 
    | Family Sharing is set up in such a way that you're punished
    | for creating child Apple accounts as Apple recommends,
    | because you'll need to repurchase MOST IAPs several times
    | over.
    | 
    | Apple's subscriptions are the exception rather than the rule,
    | but they like to promote it in such a way as you'd think all
    | Subscriptions/IAPs are shared when they're not.
 
    | zippergz wrote:
    | The app developer has to specifically support Family Sharing
    | if they want to allow people to share subscriptions.
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | ZetaZero wrote:
  | > How are they going to solve the totally legitimate sharing
  | use cases?
  | 
  | According to their Terms, there are no legitimate sharing use
  | cases. "You agree that you won't disclose your Account password
  | to anyone". That said, Calm has a family plan (6 users) for
  | only $30/year more.
 
| zxcvgm wrote:
| This is based on the open standards WebAuthn and FIDO2, where the
| credentials ("passkeys") are synced via iCloud Keychain.
| Currently you need remember to register at least 2 security keys,
| in case one is lost/misplaced. The syncing of passkeys in iCloud
| solves this backup problem.
| 
| https://fidoalliance.org/apple-google-and-microsoft-commit-t...
 
  | Vladimof wrote:
  | > The syncing of passkeys in iCloud solves this backup problem.
  | 
  | But then apple has your keys....
 
    | om2 wrote:
    | It's end to end encrypted. Apple doesn't have access.
 
    | jtokoph wrote:
    | I would assume that they are at least encrypted locally
    | before being uploaded to iCloud. (But yes, Apple could always
    | change things)
 
      | SamuelAdams wrote:
      | Don't be so certain - we need more details from Apple on
      | this. Last I checked iMessage was still (!) not encrypted
      | when backed up to iCloud.
      | 
      | https://www.howtogeek.com/710509/apples-imessage-is-
      | secure.....
 
    | 0xCMP wrote:
    | iCloud Backups != iCloud syncing iiuc. Passwords/Wifi/etc.
    | syncing is a different E2EE system.
    | 
    | You can disable iCloud Backups and still use iCloud
 
      | Vladimof wrote:
      | ahhh so they already have what they need to do iCloud E2EE,
      | they just decide not to use it for your data....
 
        | kccqzy wrote:
        | Yup. Probably because law enforcement would be livid if
        | Apple did that. In the San Bernardino terrorist case,
        | Apple basically said triggering an iCloud backup is the
        | best way to get the contents of a locked iPhone. Apple
        | routinely supplies law enforcement with contents of
        | iCloud backup.
 
        | sircastor wrote:
        | It remains one of the clearest examples of law
        | enforcement wanting a friction-free solution for getting
        | data out of iOS without Apple. They could have easily
        | attained the information and have been doing so for
        | years. They were explicitly trying to generate sympathy
        | towards a backdoor solution.
        | 
        | What's sort of surprising to me is how much they
        | overestimated public support for their cause.
 
        | samwillis wrote:
        | E2EE would have made it significantly harder for Apple to
        | build the web based apps at iCloud.com. Not to say that
        | shouldn't have though, but I can understand whey they
        | didn't.
 
        | plonk wrote:
        | Does anyone use that? It's nice to have when I want to
        | access my data from the web, which is never, and it's not
        | worth the loss of security.
        | 
        | But I imagine the FBU wouldn't like an end-to-end
        | encrypted iCloud Photos at all.
 
        | mtgx wrote:
        | Yes, this is known:
        | 
        | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-
        | exclusiv...
 
    | luhn wrote:
    | iCloud Keychain is end-to-end encrypted.
 
    | gpanders wrote:
    | Passwords in iCloud Keychain are already E2EE, it seems
    | reasonable the private passkeys would be too.
 
      | djbusby wrote:
      | How could one verify that? like for compliance audit?
 
        | fnordpiglet wrote:
        | https://support.apple.com/guide/sccc/introduction-
        | sccccea618...
        | 
        | Introduction to Apple security assurance
        | 
        | As part of our commitment to security, Apple regularly
        | engages with third-party organizations to certify and
        | attest to the security of Apple's hardware, software, and
        | services. These internationally recognized organizations
        | provide Apple with certifications that align with each
        | major operating system release. ...
 
        | znpy wrote:
        | Are such third parties listed? Can you inspect their
        | reports? What testing methodologies are involved in order
        | to issue such certifications? And can we see such
        | certifications at all?
 
      | ccouzens wrote:
      | > iCloud ... backup
      | 
      | > E2EE
      | 
      | If you can lose all your existing devices, and can still
      | restore your data, then that data isn't end to end
      | encrypted.
      | 
      | I'm taking the "end" in e2ee to mean your devices. Nothing
      | but your devices can decrypt your e2ee prospected data. If
      | a new device can enter the circle of trust without an
      | existing device's corporation then there is a backdoor.
      | 
      | I imagine icloud keychain supports synchronization rather
      | than backup
 
        | systemz wrote:
        | Maybe usage of user account password would allow for E2E
        | without any device?
 
        | hoorible wrote:
        | The password stored in your backup via iCloud Keychain
        | use the passcode of your devices as a secondary
        | encryption/lock method, which doesn't have a password
        | recovery mechanism like the Apple ID used to secure your
        | iCloud backup. Not sure that meets the definition of E2EE
        | but it's not like the passwords are recoverable by
        | another party (or even you, if you forget the passcode)
        | just because they're in your iCloud backup.
 
  | gsibble wrote:
  | How will this work on Linux?
 
    | psanford wrote:
    | FIDO usb devices just use the HID protocol so they work fine
    | on linux. Chrome and Firefox both support them.
    | 
    | I wrote a FIDO implementation that protects the signing key
    | using the system's TPM specifically for linux:
    | https://github.com/psanford/tpm-fido
    | 
    | There is no reason why you couldn't implement a similar
    | syncing strategy in a tool like this if you wanted to.
 
      | tialaramex wrote:
      | > just use the HID protocol
      | 
      | This is literally true, and covers what was important in
      | context, but warrants a little extra explanation. Since
      | these devices are specifically for humans to interface with
      | (they typically have a button or contact sensor, though
      | some have keypads or a fingerprint reader) they are
      | logically Human Interface Device class USB devices, but
      | they do _not_ speak the HID Keyboard or Pointing Device
      | sub-protocols like your mouse or keyboard (or the built-in
      | "take a photo" button on your web cam). Instead they
      | provide a FIDO-specific HID sub-protocol, which is publicly
      | documented, instead of operations like "Caps Lock pressed"
      | it's got stuff like "Begin enrolment" or "PIN xxxx entered
      | by the user" which only makes sense for this specific
      | problem.
 
      | balena wrote:
      | Isn't this approach significantly less secure than Apple's
      | though? As far as I understand the secure enclave
      | coprocessor in Apple devices stores key material _and_
      | implements user verification (TouchID etc.), right? Instead
      | software like tpm-fido bridges (in software) a user
      | verification mechanism (maybe even a fingerprint reader)
      | and the system 's TPM. But such a system can be interposed
      | with mere root access, and the TPM tricked in giving out
      | its secrets, no? Please correct me if I'm getting it wrong,
      | but Apple's approach is instead resistant even to full
      | kernel compromise, precisely because the communication
      | between TouchID/FaceID and the secure enclave cannot be
      | interposed.
      | 
      | I'm a tpm-fido user myself by the way, thank you psanford!
 
        | psanford wrote:
        | Yes, having the verification done by the secure enclave
        | itself is more secure. The TPM spec does allow for direct
        | integration with biometric devices, but I'm not aware of
        | any general purpose computers that ship in this
        | configuration.
        | 
        | > TPM tricked in giving out its secrets
        | 
        | To be clear, the key can never leave the TPM (with how
        | tpm-fido is implemented). The threat is an attacker can
        | perform an online attack by getting the TPM to sign
        | messages it shouldn't. But you couldn't steal the key
        | from the TPM and use it somewhere else.
        | 
        | But it doesn't really matter for the Webauthn threat
        | model. An attacker with root access can steal your
        | browser sessions directly.
 
  | al_borland wrote:
  | >Currently you need remember to register at least 2 security
  | keys, in case one is lost/misplaced.
  | 
  | This is always my issue with 2FA or passwordless auth. You're
  | forced to have 2 devices and are kind of screwed if you don't
  | hvae two on you.
  | 
  | I was on a trip and broke my iPhone. It had my plane tickets on
  | it to get home. I was able to get a replacement from Apple,
  | they just gave it to me and sent me on my way. When I turned it
  | on it wanted me to authenticate with one of my other Apple
  | devices. By dumb luck I happened to have my iPad with me. If I
  | didn't have that, I'm not sure what I would have done.
  | 
  | A co-worker told me to move all my 2FA to Authy as a means to
  | avoid locking 2FA to hardware, but I haven't sufficently looked
  | into it yet.
  | 
  | While I don't like passwords and understand their very real
  | security limitations. I'm also not a fan of my phone becoming
  | my identity.
 
    | nicoburns wrote:
    | Password managers like Bitwarden can do TOTP with syncing.
    | Doesn't help with Apple though which uses non-standard 2FA. I
    | actually have some accounts using SMS still, because I can
    | fairly easily get a replacement sim if the device is lost.
 
    | hoorible wrote:
    | Apple's implementation uses SMS as a backup. Thinking is
    | probably that if you only have one device, it's usually your
    | phone; so you would have been able get your 2FA code via
    | text. It's not easily discoverable though, so easy for you to
    | miss it.
 
      | chrishas35 wrote:
      | > Apple's implementation uses SMS as a backup.
      | 
      | I hope they'll go away from this, or at least give the
      | option. I won't use their password/key storage until they
      | do. 2FA is only as good as the weakest link, and SMS is the
      | weakest possibility.
 
| whoisjohnkid wrote:
| Woah this is awesome. Does anyone know if this is using web authn
| under the hood? Or is this a new spec? Would love to see Pub/Priv
| replace passwords
 
  | aseipp wrote:
  | Yes, it uses WebAuthn under the hood. Passkeys have technically
  | been available to developers for a while I think but very
  | experimental still. I guess they've begun hitting new
  | milestones.
  | 
  | This is basically the biggest problem with WebAuthn today: the
  | credentials are tied to the browser -- or really whatever
  | application is using WebAuthn, browser or not, name aside --
  | which means that if you register for a service with Firefox,
  | you have to re-register with Chrome. If the service is designed
  | for it, it might associate multiple public keys to a single
  | "user." So Passkeys are just a pretty natural combination of
  | two things to fix that: "WebAuthn keys, but inside iCloud
  | Keychain." Presumably any apps that integrate with iCloud
  | Keychain can then use them as expected.
  | 
  | Of course you can just export the key material, which in a
  | sense is "all" Passkeys are doing: they're a formalization of
  | how to export and manage those keys in keychain.
  | 
  | But there are still some major issues:
  | 
  | - Enrolling new devices from old ones. This is especially
  | tricky for platform authenticators. For example I register for
  | a website using FaceID on my iPhone, which uses the "platform"
  | authenticator rather than the "cross-platform" authenticator,
  | and now I need to now enroll my Macbook and Windows desktop.
  | They both need _new_ keypairs, because the original account is
  | using a platform authenticator. And the new keypairs might be
  | either platform or cross-platform authenticators. This is
  | especially prevalent on browsers (apps can work around it with
  | a more specific scheme; see below.)
  | 
  | - Similarly: cross-platform software for sharing or syncing
  | credentials. Something like 1password but with WebAuthn support
  | for handling those cross-platform webauthn keys.
  | 
  | Both of those require a lot of software and decision making to
  | get it all working correctly, both on the side of operators and
  | clients. For example, in your own application (not a browser),
  | you could simply use a platform authenticator like FaceID to
  | read a cross-platform WebAuthn credential from iCloud Keychain,
  | which would avert part of problem 1. But in a browser, mac or
  | iphone users would probably _like_ to use FaceID /TouchID,
  | which are only available as a platform authenticator, so you'd
  | have to handle that case of new enrollment.
  | 
  | There are also a million other issues, for example Windows
  | Hello has like a million weird edge cases for how it works in
  | and outside of the browser. macOS seems to be the furthest
  | ahead here with the introduction of Passkeys, and the strong
  | system-wide support for TouchID/FaceID/etc. I do not know what
  | the state of Linux is; presumably you could integrate this with
  | something like gnome-keyring but there's no synchronization
  | service either.
  | 
  | So we're still a ways away from actually eliminating passwords.
  | WebAuthn works today but does need a lot of extra oil to make
  | it smooth, and it's still not a primary authentication
  | mechanism unless you're very careful about your userbase. But
  | Passkeys are a good start and will mean you'll need passwords
  | in less apps, and you'll be able to log in securely more
  | quickly. It's a small but needed step.
 
    | tialaramex wrote:
    | > This is basically the biggest problem with WebAuthn today:
    | the credentials are tied to the browser
    | 
    | That's definitely not true. My Feitian ePass for example
    | (very cheap USB dongle that lives with my house keys) works
    | just fine to sign me into GitHub on this desktop PC w/
    | Firefox on Linux, it works fine via a USB-C to USB-A adaptor
    | to sign in on my Android phone w/ Chrome, and likewise on the
    | Windows laptop I use for work when I needed to access my
    | personal site briefly at Christmas and that was the only
    | laptop I'd brought with me.
    | 
    | If you have credentials tied up in some proprietary system
    | then, yeah, they're trapped in there, and in Apple's case
    | they've decided to make it possible to move the credentials
    | to another Apple device via iCloud.
 
      | floatboth wrote:
      | Yeah, since Apple's (and Google's) soft WebAuthn
      | implementation is designed for syncing across devices, it
      | should also work with many browsers on the same machine.
 
| 0x0 wrote:
| Is this the return of the html tag  ?
 
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Hopefully this will be compatible with WebAuthN in practice and
| encourage web sites to implement it (in a compatible manner). It
| often does take Apple's heft to force a change across the web.
| 
| Most importantly, hopefully web sites will implement support for
| multiple authenticators, so you can actually use this safely
| without relying on a cloud-synced solution.
| 
| I hope this pushes out other, less secure and more tedious 2FA
| methods. However, once it becomes popular, sign in with WebAuthN
| only will likely not be enough, as attackers learn to attack it
| (e.g. stealing software-based tokens, adding a cloud-synced
| device, hijacking already-authenticated sessions from compromised
| machines)
 
| paxys wrote:
| What standard is this using? The doc doesn't specify.
 
  | SEJeff wrote:
  | Under the covers, this is webauthn, which is based on
  | FIDO2/U2F. I knew it was webauthn as soon as I read "relying
  | party" and the two keypairs.
 
  | samwillis wrote:
  | According to the WWDC Keynote they are working with the FIDO
  | Alliance on it: https://fidoalliance.org/
 
  | scottlu2 wrote:
  | Comment from the presentation: "Worked with fido alliance to
  | work across platforms".
 
  | EtienneK wrote:
  | FIDO2/WebAuthN
 
| saos wrote:
| How does this impact 1Password going forward?
 
  | stetrain wrote:
  | 1Password is also part of FIDO. I assume if you want to use
  | 1Password on Apple devices to store passkeys that should work
  | fine, just like it does for passwords today.
  | 
  | https://blog.1password.com/1password-is-joining-the-fido-all...
 
    | Rafert wrote:
    | They've already put this WebAuthn teaser up:
    | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYFxfchhR1g
 
| [deleted]
 
| elamje wrote:
| A more generalized solution: https://passage.id
 
| hackererror404 wrote:
| What happens if you lose your device or it breaks or something?
| Do you lose access to anything tied to it?
 
  | babypuncher wrote:
  | It sounds like your private keys are stored in iCloud, so they
  | should be accessible on a new device as long as you remember
  | your Apple ID, password, the device-specific PIN/passcode from
  | your old phone.
 
  | FollowingTheDao wrote:
  | I would guess you could not sign into it on another computer,
  | right?
  | 
  | They must have considered this because that's would be a huge
  | hassle.
 
  | xmdx wrote:
  | They said in the event that everything is synced on iCloud so
  | all your devices can use the keys, which makes me think no,
  | it's just a password manager, without the password bit. Maybe
  | they create a separate key for each device, but then why
  | mention iCloud syncing at all.
 
    | howinteresting wrote:
    | It's a password manager _with cryptographic vendor lockin_.
    | 
    | There are definitely some benefits though, such as immunity
    | from phishing. Surely we as the industry can bring them about
    | in a way that doesn't involve cryptographic vendor lockin.
 
      | vorpalhex wrote:
      | The secrets can be exported - whether or not they will
      | allow that though...
 
      | altairprime wrote:
      | The industry doesn't seem to have a working software
      | solution for mobile phone authentication secrets that both
      | is 1) immune to persuading a user to export their data (to
      | get phished), and 2) allows a user to export their data at
      | any time (to prevent lock-in).
      | 
      | What would it look like to do #2 safely, without enabling
      | the phishing that we see today with #1?
 
        | danShumway wrote:
        | I get where you're coming from and you're not wrong, but
        | at the same time, I don't buy this as an excuse for
        | vendor lock-in here, because it seems like Apple is
        | already backing up passkeys to iCloud.
        | 
        | If Apple has decided that the risk of getting your
        | passkeys phished out of your Apple iCloud Account is
        | outweighed by the benefit of users being able to
        | restore/sync login details immediately when they buy a
        | new iOS device and log into it, then I think it's
        | reasonable for users to expect the same treatment and the
        | same experience when they're moving away from iOS.
        | 
        | If Apple wasn't backing up any of the logins, and they
        | had committed to when you trade in your phone and upgrade
        | to the latest iPhone forcing you to manually re-create
        | all of those keys one-by-one using your recovery option,
        | then I'd accept not having an export option for
        | Android/Linux/Windows. Otherwise, it will just seem
        | really suspiciously convenient to me if they ultimately
        | decide that exporting keys is acceptable risk _unless_ it
        | 's to a competitor's device.
        | 
        | As far as I can tell, there hasn't been any official
        | confirmation that users won't be able to export them to
        | non-iOS devices, so maybe it's all worry over nothing.
        | But I don't think security is a justification to apply
        | restrictions specifically only on devices outside of
        | Apple's ecosystem.
 
  | snowwrestler wrote:
  | I think Apple encrypts the pass keys locally on your device,
  | then stores encrypted copies in iCloud, which you can download
  | and decrypt on a new device.
  | 
  | On the new device you would be prompted for the passcode of the
  | device you lost or broke, to decrypt and access them.
 
    | gzer0 wrote:
    | iCloud (and anything on iCloud) is _explicitly_ not
    | encrypted, though [1].
    | 
    | [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-
    | exclusiv...
 
      | macintux wrote:
      | That's not universally true.
      | 
      | https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
      | 
      | > If you forget your password or device passcode, iCloud
      | Data Recovery Service can help you decrypt your data so you
      | can regain access to your photos, notes, documents, device
      | backups, and more. Data types that are protected by end-to-
      | end encryption--such as your Keychain, Messages, Screen
      | Time, and Health data--are not accessible via iCloud Data
      | Recovery Service.
 
      | ddoolin wrote:
      | Literally in the article:
      | 
      | > Instead of protecting all of iCloud with end-to-end
      | encryption, Apple has shifted to focus on protecting some
      | of the most sensitive user information, such as saved
      | passwords and health data.
      | 
      | > But backed-up contact information and texts from
      | iMessage, WhatsApp and other encrypted services remain
      | available to Apple employees and authorities.
 
      | vngzs wrote:
      | This is false; some data is end-to-end encrypted, including
      | Health and Keychain data. Photos, contacts, and Drive are
      | "encrypted on server" which means Apple can read them.
      | 
      | https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
 
      | [deleted]
 
      | kennywinker wrote:
      | That's iCloud backups, not everything icloud. iCloud
      | Keychain is encrypted (https://support.apple.com/en-
      | gb/guide/security/secdeb202947/...) tho I'mnot sure I trust
      | their escrow system to not escrow data to the gov if asked.
 
      | theshrike79 wrote:
      | Photos need to be encrypted on server so they can be
      | scanned for CSAM. Apple tried to move that bit to the phone
      | so they could encrypt photos on server too, but we all know
      | how that went.
 
      | colburnmh wrote:
      | Data in iCloud is going to be encrypted by the host
      | provider in-transit and at rest. That is not the same as
      | being encrypted at the source by Apple. It means that
      | Google, Amazon, Azure (and whatever other platforms Apple
      | uses for iCloud storage) will be doing that encryption with
      | keys that they have for Apple. All the major vendors have
      | storage encryption both in-transit and at rest. I suspect
      | that it would be a requirement from Apple for any future
      | vendor, too.
      | 
      | It does mean that the data is not sitting in clear-text
      | form on the provider's disks. But the exact details of that
      | encryption may vary from provider to provider.
 
  | gruez wrote:
  | Same thing that happens if your FIDO/U2F key breaks. If you
  | have a backup key (or in the case of this implementation,
  | icloud backup), then it shouldn't matter. Otherwise you're at
  | the mercy of the site that's requesting the credentials. They
  | might allow you to authenticate via another method (security
  | questions?), or lock you out permanently.
 
    | toomuchtodo wrote:
    | Ideally, if you can't identity proof in person, recovery flow
    | should be Stripe Identity or another proofing system that
    | will consume government ID and output pass or fail. It's the
    | next best thing to showing up in person and having a human
    | proof you, and saying "oops keys all gone" isn't going to fly
    | for the masses at scale.
 
  | blktiger wrote:
  | It's tied to a key stored in your iCloud. So basically as long
  | as you have a device tied to your iCloud you can get in.
  | Presumably, if you lose access to iCloud you will have
  | problems.
 
    | willis936 wrote:
    | Apple is the face on the screen. There is no lady with a
    | hammer.
    | 
    | https://youtu.be/OYecfV3ubP8
 
      | threeseed wrote:
      | This is based on an open standard and is entirely optional.
      | 
      | So your analogy makes absolutely no sense.
 
        | willis936 wrote:
        | It's a metaphor.
        | 
        | Semantics aside, holding private keys hostage with no
        | recourse is Orwellian. A for-profit company has no
        | business being a centralized identity authority.
 
    | cokeandpepsi wrote:
    | What happens when you're not using an apple device?
 
      | MBCook wrote:
      | I saw a screenshot. Somehow a QR code is presented and you
      | scan that with your phone. I'm not entirely sure what
      | happens from there.
      | 
      | But there was a picture of them using it with a Windows
      | machine. So they've thought of it.
 
        | cokeandpepsi wrote:
        | interesting, but it still needs an iPhone> -- I was kind
        | of burned hard when trying to migrate my iCloud keychain
        | passwords to something else so I'm curious how smooth it
        | actually is
 
      | [deleted]
 
| whiteboardr wrote:
| For context: https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2022/05/how-a...
 
  | systemvoltage wrote:
  | > available to the masses in the form of a standard adopted by
  | Apple, Google, and Microsoft that allows for cross-platform and
  | cross-service passkeys.
  | 
  | Any way to use this standard if you're not
  | Apple/Google/Microsoft? I'd prefer an option that
  | Apple/Google/Microsoft can call a service (that I control and
  | authorize). I want to be able to self host such a service or
  | have an open marketplace that can compete to serve this
  | service.
 
    | dane-pgp wrote:
 
| danieldk wrote:
| Beta support for Passkey is already in the current macOS/iOS
| releases:
| 
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/authenticationserv...
| 
| I am already using Passkeys on some websites.
 
  | samwillis wrote:
  | Yes, it looks like it's been around for a couple of months,
  | after a somewhat quiet announcement. It's the first I had heard
  | of it though.
 
    | jackson1442 wrote:
    | Since Fall 2019 actually! (at least that's when I first used
    | it)
 
    | danieldk wrote:
    | There was a WWDC session last year about Passkey:
    | 
    | https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10106/
 
  | firloop wrote:
  | Yup, I think the bigger announcement today is around it
  | becoming available on non-Apple devices.
 
| kingcharles wrote:
| Can you use this without biometrics? I don't use biometrics
| because they are not protected by the Fifth Amendment in the USA.
 
| jjcm wrote:
| They also demoed this working directly in Safari - does anyone
| know how to support this in languages other than swift/obj-c? Can
| this be done with js?
 
  | floatboth wrote:
  | As an RP, there is nothing Apple specific for you to do, just
  | WebAuthn.
 
| howinteresting wrote:
| Importantly, if you switch platforms you lose all your auth
| tokens and have to reauth everywhere. It ultimately is yet
| another way to do vendor lockin, except it has the FIDO
| alliance's blessing this time.
| 
| The competition, password managers like 1password and bitwarden,
| do not have any sort of vendor lockin. You can freely export your
| passwords from one manager and into another.
 
  | FollowingTheDao wrote:
  | Oh, I see now. Don't think I will be using it.
 
  | teeray wrote:
  | Plus, password managers have fantastic backwards compatibility
  | even on old, crufty sites that will never be updated.
  | 
  | We really should be working to allow better, standardized
  | integration with password managers (communicating password
  | length and alphabet requirements, well-known URIs to do zero-
  | touch credential rotation, etc.) rather than trying to do "Log
  | in with BIGCORP" in another way.
 
    | realityking wrote:
    | There are some efforts to make things easier for password
    | manager. E.g. differentiation new password, old password and
    | 2FA token fields: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/s
    | ecurity/password_...
    | 
    | I believe some password managers also look at the regex
    | attribute to understand required or disallowed characters.
    | 
    | For resetting passwords there's at least a way to deep link
    | to the right page: https://web.dev/change-password-url/
 
  | Apocryphon wrote:
  | As a long-time Safari user who uses keychain heavily in lieu of
  | 1Password or other managers, I probably will migrate to using
  | Passkey because it sounds pretty seamless.
  | 
  | But the lock-in point seems like a founded critique. Does
  | anyone disagree with this claim?
 
    | michael1999 wrote:
    | I'm not sure this is any more locked in then the parent post
    | is locked into 1password. Moving auth tools is a pain.
    | 
    | Anyone implementing FIDO should allow you to enrol multiple
    | devices. As long as the auth consumers allow multiple keys,
    | there's no lock-in. You just need to setup your new device
    | before ditching apple.
 
      | howinteresting wrote:
      | Moving auth tools is actually quite simple. I migrated from
      | lastpass to 1password a few years ago and it was very
      | straightforward.
 
      | vorpalhex wrote:
      | 1Password et al offer many export options including very
      | simple csv
 
      | e_y_ wrote:
      | Looking at how various places do 2FA, it's likely that at
      | least some websites will _not_ support multiple keys even
      | if they ought to.
      | 
      | Also, I imagine that many people do not have the luxury of
      | multiple devices. So if you lose your phone, you'll need to
      | buy or at least borrow another iOS device to recover it
      | from iCloud before you could switch to Android.
 
        | mwcampbell wrote:
        | How common would it be for someone who has just lost
        | their phone to want to immediately switch platforms?
        | Isn't it much more likely that they'd want a new device
        | on the same platform as the one they just lost?
 
        | Trollmann wrote:
        | Supply chain issues, sanctions, travel or prices you
        | can't afford at the moment your phone breaks down may
        | make you switch the platform involuntarily.
 
        | sokoloff wrote:
        | If they were already planning to switch platforms, the
        | loss or destruction of their old device provides a
        | natural moment to make the switch, where buying a new
        | device feels like it's locking yourself in for another
        | couple of years.
 
  | derefr wrote:
  | If you can extract tokens from a device, then they're basically
  | passwords, not tokens -- i.e. anyone who can hack your device
  | can get them. Tokens only add multi-factor security insofar as
  | they have distinct exfiltration requirements from passwords.
  | 
  | Services that properly support MFA should simply support
  | accounts having multiple bound authenticator devices, each with
  | their own private key/seed. In such setups, the proper way to
  | rotate out an authenticator device is to add a new device
  | first, and _then_ remove the old device; and the proper way to
  | protect against a lost device, is to keep an extra bound device
  | in safe cold storage somewhere (e.g. a safe deposit box.)
  | 
  | Basically, look at how the crypto people handle the "hardware
  | wallets" (really, smart cards) they use for multisig
  | transactions. 2-of-3 confirmations, two hot smart cards held
  | independently by company officers, one cold smart card held by
  | e.g. the company's law firm.
 
    | howinteresting wrote:
    | Your first paragraph, restated, is that passwords are
    | superior to tokens.
    | 
    | Your "proper way" is absurd and nonsensical for the vast
    | majority of users. The first time they get burned by this is
    | the last time they'd rely on anything but the one memorized
    | password they reuse everywhere.
 
      | derefr wrote:
      | MFA itself is absurd and nonsensical for the vast majority
      | of users. It's security theatre unless you do it right, and
      | if you're doing it right, it's -- as you've said -- too
      | hard for most people to bother. Properly implemented, MFA
      | is an Enterprise feature, not a personal feature. Like SAML
      | SSO, or having audit-log APIs.
      | 
      | The point of setting up MFA is to secure things that really
      | _need_ to be secure, where the person with the data is
      | aware of real attacker threat-profiles that have real
      | interest in their data. It 's a thing that companies that
      | hire CISOs care about.
      | 
      | Any implementation of MFA you see in the wild is either
      | part of a product that has an enterprise tier that has
      | customers like that, where the product devs decided to
      | "trickle down" the feature [in a less-secure, but possibly
      | _optionally_ secure, form] to lower plan tiers; or it 's a
      | cargo-cult reimplementation where a company "saw other
      | companies doing it and it seemed like a good idea" -- but
      | they exchanged actual security for convenience.
      | 
      | (You can usually distinguish one from the other, because
      | the companies "actually doing MFA" will almost always
      | support smart-card authenticators -- and have for decades,
      | back since doing so required a Java applet. Because
      | "issuing each employee a smart card" is what companies that
      | actually care about cybersecurity -- e.g. defense
      | contractors, investment banks, etc. -- do as a matter of
      | course.)
 
        | howinteresting wrote:
        | ????
        | 
        | The goal of all this is to make auth tokens be _single-
        | factor_ , not one factor in MFA. If you read the Ars
        | article linked elsewhere in the thread the people behind
        | it are pretty clear about their desire to get rid of
        | passwords.
 
        | derefr wrote:
        | The security of these tokens is still MFA as an _end-to-
        | end security model_ , insofar as you need a something-
        | you-know [password, passcode] to _unlock_ the device that
        | serves as your something-you-have. So someone who just
        | steals the device, can 't use it to authenticate as you.
        | (See also: smart cards having PINs.)
        | 
        | And, once again, companies doing MFA _properly_ , enforce
        | MDM policies on such devices, such that they either don't
        | allow you to use the convenience biometric unlock
        | features, or they limit them to ~1 minute before you must
        | unlock with a something-you-know factor again.
        | 
        | (I worked for IBM for a year-or-so a while back; they
        | required this even for phones not serving as MFA
        | authenticators, because they had a threat model that
        | included attackers cloning your fingerprint just to snoop
        | company secrets out of the emails on your phone.)
 
        | drxzcl wrote:
 
        | closeparen wrote:
        | As far as I understand, the story is: casual users don't
        | choose unique passwords. MFA, even in its weakest forms
        | like SMS, defends against credential stuffing.
        | Indiscriminate credential stuffing attacks based on
        | database dumps, etc. are common enough that this is
        | worthwhile. FIDO/WebAuthn add protection against phishing
        | (because the token is bound to the domain name). Phishing
        | is also a common indiscriminate attack against casual
        | users.
        | 
        | In a world where people used password managers correctly
        | and all the time, this might be redundant, but we don't
        | live in that world.
 
| epaulson wrote:
| I can be onboard with this if Apple opens up an iCloud API for
| syncing, so I can sync a non-Apple device through iCloud, and if
| I leave Apple and iCloud behind, my non-Apple devices keep
| working, even if I never sync through iCloud again.
 
  | mceachen wrote:
  | C'mon. Non-Apple devices aren't _even remotely_ a priority for
  | them. Just look how bad Apple Music is on Android and web.
 
    | shralpmeister wrote:
    | The AppleTV app on my LG TV is the best third party app on
    | it, IMO. Looks and works great.
 
      | corrral wrote:
      | Their Roku and AndroidTV apps are also good. I'm not sure
      | I've ever even used the service on a piece of Apple
      | hardware, and it's never been a problem.
 
    | nobodywasishere wrote:
    | Apple Music on Android is actually really good, I use it
    | daily. On some level it was a priority for them for market
    | share, to compete with Spotify. I don't see the "competitor"
    | in this space (cloud) though that would drive that necessity.
 
    | eddieroger wrote:
    | I'm going to sound like an Apple apologize, but what's wrong
    | with Apple Music on the web? I just launched it (for the
    | second time in a while), and after signing in, was presented
    | with a familiar looking UI and all my playlists, and was
    | playing searched-for music in under a minute. I know Apple
    | prioritizes their platforms first, but this doesn't seem like
    | an example of Apple failing a competing platform.
 
  | stetrain wrote:
  | Why not just use 1Password or a similar service?
 
| dyml wrote:
| This is wonderful news! If anyone is interested in experimenting
| we built an API that makes it very simple to add WebAuthn
| (passkeys) to your existing web app.
| 
| It's available at https://passwordless.dev
| 
| Note: We also maintain the open source fido2-net-lib, the API
| just lowers the friction for devs.
 
  | smorks wrote:
  | i use fido2-net-lib for a personal auth site, it works great!
  | thanks for all your work!
 
| largehotcoffee wrote:
| Thank god the touchbar continues to disappear
 
  | [deleted]
 
| [deleted]
 
| throwaway92394 wrote:
| Does anyone know how this/FIDO/Webauthn affect privacy? How well
| supported are alt accounts? Are they easy to tell they're from
| the same signer?
| 
| I figure privacy is fine as long as the implementations allow you
| to select which account to login with. Is this currently a thing?
| From everything I read it seems like the current implementations
| are only meant to support one identity?
| 
| EDIT: These are great responses, also curious if anyone is aware
| if Apple's current implementation supports multiple identities?
 
  | blamestross wrote:
  | FIDO/WebauthN are generally "the good guys" when it comes to
  | privacy bc "bring your own secure hardware key" is always an
  | option. I'm kinda torn over the "use your cellphone as a key"
  | approaches as not privacy friendly but we can't actually
  | prevent them (you can always simulate a key).
 
    | dane-pgp wrote:
    | > you can always simulate a key
    | 
    | But you can't simulate an attestation that you're using a
    | device from one of the "approved" manufacturers in the
    | cartel. This is basically DRM for human identity.
    | 
    | https://nitter.net/sleevi_/status/1392903827712512001
 
  | jtcasper wrote:
  | FIDO2/WebAuthn don't have anything to do with user management
  | from an application architecture perspective. They leave all
  | the work of combining the attestation credentials and your
  | application's concept of a "user" to the application.
  | 
  | This means you can (and should as a designer) have multiple
  | sets of credentials for one "user", multiple distinct
  | credentials that you (the user) can register to multiple
  | separate "user"s in the application, etc.
  | 
  | I believe all FIDO2 authenticators (like hardware keys) should
  | generate a new hardware / key ID for each request for pairing a
  | new credential. I know that my key does that, when I was
  | working on implementing WebAuthn for $DAYJOB.
  | 
  | https://developers.yubico.com/WebAuthn/ is a good jumping off
  | point.
 
  | psanford wrote:
  | FIDO2 resident keys (the thing people are now calling passkeys)
  | allow for multiple credentials for a single site. If you have a
  | device that supports resident keys you can try this for
  | yourself on https://webauthn.io.
  | 
  | There is also no way for a site to know if two sets of
  | credentials belong to the same physical hardware device or not.
  | Sites can request the attestation certificate, but that is not
  | unique per device (the spec says the attestation cert should be
  | shared by at least 100,000 devices). If you want to see the
  | attestation cert for a fido(2) device, I made a little tool
  | that will show it to you: https://what-the-fido.sanford.io/
 
| jeroenhd wrote:
| The page doesn't state it explicitly; is this Apple's
| implementation for FIDO2?
 
  | jdminhbg wrote:
  | The video presentation said it was part of the FIDO standard.
 
    | jeroenhd wrote:
    | Ah, okay. I'm not interested in Apple's periodic product ads
    | so I didn't really understand why this was linked again,
    | especially since it's been available for a while now.
 
      | MBCook wrote:
      | It's been available in beta/nightly form for a little
      | while, I think.
      | 
      | But at todays WWDC presentation they announced it as an
      | official complete feature for the next releases of their
      | OSes.
      | 
      | (That's why there is so much Apple stuff, presentation just
      | eneed about 15m ago)
 
      | threeseed wrote:
      | It is linked because it was covered in the keynote.
      | 
      | And what is new is that it looks to become a widely
      | supported FIDO standard i.e. Google/Microsoft are onboard
      | whereas before it was an iOS/macOS only technology.
 
        | jeroenhd wrote:
        | Their announcement last month already indicated that it
        | would become widely supported Soon (TM):
        | https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/05/apple-google-and-
        | micr...
        | 
        | I'm sort of expecting Google to follow suit with the next
        | Android release, and perhaps Microsoft after that when
        | the next iteration of Windows 11 drops (or at the same
        | time, as Microsoft doesn't have a mobile market and
        | relies on Android and iOS integrations).
 
| gumby wrote:
| Can I use a password manager like 1password it's FIDO2 the way I
| currently can in iOS/macOS? iCloud Keychain is the most barebones
| of password manager
 
  | stetrain wrote:
  | Seems like this will be possible:
  | https://blog.1password.com/1password-is-joining-the-fido-all...
 
    | gumby wrote:
    | Excellent. I actually like Apple's practice in this regard:
    | they have a barebones/baseline functionality but allow third
    | parties to provide a value added replacement that can be a
    | first class replacement.*
    | 
    | Apple is _almost_ there with mail, addressbook, and calendar
    | but perhaps surprisingly they aren 't as seamless as it is
    | with passwords.
    | 
    | * For example this allowed me to plug 1password into my
    | parents' phones and computers and use the shared vaults to
    | make sure I could help them get unstuck from various web
    | sites. Plus when they pass on I'll still be able to help the
    | surviving parent to get access to things they need from the
    | other parent's device. The apple one is disabled so they
    | can't even accidentally get something confusingly stored in
    | it.
 
| camkego wrote:
| For those in the know, will I be able to export my private keys
| and data from Passkey somehow, so that if I wanted to, I could
| switch to another FIDO device or system?
| 
| I would speculate Apple is not going to support this, and Apple
| will retain control of the private keys, and do the request
| signing like an old-school USB FIDO device, but I don't know for
| sure.
 
  | stetrain wrote:
  | They allow export of everything else in iCloud keychain so I
  | don't expect this will be different.
 
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| Does anyone know if this is different to Webauthn? You can
| already login with touchid/faceid, with the private key stored in
| apples keychain. Lots of sites support it, I just added it as 2FA
| to Mailpace (https://blog.mailpace.com/blog/why-we-use-webauthn-
| for-2fa/), making it passwordless login instead of 2FA is trivial
| and fully supported by webauthn.
| 
| What's different about this?
 
  | jrockway wrote:
  | Reading the linked page, it certainly looks very similar. I've
  | also implemented WebAuthn from scratch and the term "relying
  | party" is burned into my brain, and this document also uses
  | that term. It's a reasonable term to use in any authentication
  | context, though, so not a smoking gun I guess.
  | 
  | WebAuthn continues to work great on iOS and Mac OS, so I'm not
  | sure there's a good reason to add some other new standard.
  | (Though I do have the controversial opinion of wanting Apple to
  | share my credentials between all devices. I have my iPad,
  | iPhone, Macbook, and portable security key all enrolled in SSO.
  | I don't mind this but I feel like it probably hinders adoption
  | over an easily-hackable pasword that you just remember.)
 
    | tialaramex wrote:
    | Relying Party is the jargon for the entity that gets to
    | _rely_ on the fancy cryptographic technology to determine
    | something that would otherwise be difficult  / expensive /
    | unreliable. They're relying on the maths working, and on
    | certain other parties doing their jobs correctly.
    | 
    | Everybody here is a Relying Party when they use HTTPS. The
    | Web PKI promises that this is really news.ycombinator.com to
    | you, the HN reader, so long as the math works (RSA, Elliptic
    | Curve Cryptography and likely AES) and so long as your
    | browser vendor did their job, and the Issuing CA (DigiCert)
    | did their job.
    | 
    | Relying Parties should ideally know why their trust is well-
    | founded. For example, in the Web PKI examining this
    | cryptography is the job of the Internet Research Task Force
    | (related to the IETF), the browser vendors are responsible to
    | you directly, and the Root CAs are overseen by m.d.s.policy,
    | run by Mozilla on behalf of their users and everybody else's
    | users.
 
  | anony999 wrote:
  | >> Apple has described Passkey as a new kind of credential in
  | the iCloud keychain. The technology is based on the Web
  | Authentication API (WebAuthn), a rapidly emerging standard that
  | uses public key cryptography instead of passwords for
  | authenticating users to websites and applications.
  | 
  | Whatever "based on webauthn" means...Let's hope it's not just a
  | buggy implementation of WebAuthn as they did with OpenID
  | Connect
 
    | [deleted]
 
    | swamp40 wrote:
    | Same as what they did with Bluetooth and AirTags, AirPods,
    | etc.
    | 
    | They start with the standardized technology, do their little
    | twist (which usually involves fixing some standardized bug
    | that affects performance and people have been complaining
    | about for years), and patent it.
 
  | aseipp wrote:
  | Passkeys are available for general use in any application
  | through the system frameworks, not just the browser; they
  | simply use WebAuthn under the hood, but it's meant to expand
  | support outside of the browser for more apps in more use cases.
  | 
  | I wrote another comment elsewhere but there are some other
  | issues with using WebAuthn as a primary authentication
  | mechanism right now, especially things like new device
  | enrollment when using platform authenticators (not trivial but
  | not what people are used to), so most people opt to design it
  | as a 2FA mechanism since that normally fits into existing
  | designs easier ("just another auth device" like TOTP or SMS.)
  | So Passkeys will help smooth that a bit for Apple users.
  | 
  | Also we still need ways of exporting keys and software (like
  | 1password) needs to synchronize them, manage them securely.
  | There's still a long ways to go on that front, which probably
  | won't be handled until stuff like this has settled.
  | 
  | If you can use WebAuthn today in the browser and handle new
  | device enrollment and have designed with it in mind as a
  | primary auth mechanism, you're way, _way_ ahead of the curve.
  | This is just Apple 's attempt to help kick the can further down
  | the road for their users; you may not need to use Passkeys at
  | all. There's just more to do before we can actually use
  | WebAuthn as the basis to replace passwords in more places.
 
    | judge2020 wrote:
    | > Also we still need ways of exporting keys and software
    | (like 1password) needs to synchronize them, manage them
    | securely. There's still a long ways to go on that front,
    | which probably won't be handled until stuff like this has
    | settled.
    | 
    | That's the point of passkeys here: iCloud Keychain syncs
    | them, and if you want to use your keys on a non-apple device
    | you'll be able to scan a QR code, which initiates a new BLE
    | connection so that your phone can sign the login request
    | remotely.
 
      | kps wrote:
      | I'm writing this on a non-Apple computer that doesn't have
      | any radios. Now what?
 
        | imwillofficial wrote:
        | You don't use the feature.
 
        | stetrain wrote:
        | Then use another password manager that supports passkeys?
        | 
        | Like 1Password
        | 
        | https://blog.1password.com/1password-is-joining-the-fido-
        | all...
 
        | dkonofalski wrote:
        | We scrap the whole thing since it didn't work for 1
        | person...
 
        | drexlspivey wrote:
        | What exactly is your point? You can just add a yubikey or
        | any other device that uses WebAuthn to the service you
        | want to authenticate with.
 
        | WorldMaker wrote:
        | Buy a cheap USB dongle for BLE?
 
        | booi wrote:
        | Also, in what world can you buy a computer with no radios
        | anymore. Even $10 SOC computers have radios.
 
        | skykooler wrote:
        | Many desktop motherboards don't have onboard wifi or
        | bluetooth, so unless you installed a card for that they
        | are limited to ethernet.
 
      | aseipp wrote:
      | Yes, obviously, but I was mostly referring to being able to
      | share outside iCloud keychain, and in general 3rd party
      | software support for this -- but, I wasn't aware of the BLE
      | option, which is very interesting! I'm already very
      | invested in 1Password (which I would like to integrate
      | somehow, ideally) but that's good to know
 
        | stetrain wrote:
        | https://blog.1password.com/1password-is-joining-the-fido-
        | all...
 
  | tialaramex wrote:
  | As far as I can see this is Apple's (thus macOS / iOS) platform
  | for FIDO, whereas WebAuthn does FIDO for the Web.
  | 
  | So, if you have macOS or iOS software for Mailpace, this is a
  | way to have the same workflow for that as you get with WebAuthn
  | for the web site.
  | 
  | Android likewise has an API for apps to get this, as well as
  | the Chrome browser on Android having WebAuthn, and if you have
  | apps on both platforms it might make sense to do that there
  | too.
  | 
  | Technology wise the key difference is that for WebAuthn the
  | Relying Party ID - the thing that distinguishes GitHub from
  | Facebook (for example) is based on a DNS name, and that's
  | verified by your web browser, while for these app APIs the RPID
  | is based on some platform identifier and is verified by the
  | host OS.
  | 
  | So, GitHub won't get your Facebook credentials because
  | github.com and facebook.com are different DNS names. Likewise
  | "The 100% Legit Mailpace App" on iOS can't get the credentials
  | for "Albert's Real Mailpace App" because they have some
  | different internal iOS ID.
  | 
  | At the backend, validation is pretty similar except the RPID is
  | different, and you'll need to read the documentation carefully
  | to figure out what the RPID is for these app APIs, if you have
  | a pile of magic numbers for "your" app it's probably one of
  | those. You don't get to specify, because the whole point is
  | that nobody can impersonate your app (well, obviously on an
  | iPhone Apple could impersonate it, and on Android Google could)
 
    | dwaite wrote:
    | > Technology wise the key difference is that for WebAuthn the
    | Relying Party ID - the thing that distinguishes GitHub from
    | Facebook (for example) is based on a DNS name, and that's
    | verified by your web browser, while for these app APIs the
    | RPID is based on some platform identifier and is verified by
    | the host OS.
    | 
    | The native APIs on Android, Apple and Microsoft platforms
    | leverage relying party IDs which are web origins (e.g.
    | https://github.com) whether doing native or web apps. The
    | same native API is typically used by say Github Desktop as
    | say the Chrome Browser.
    | 
    | A native app needs an entitlement and a file on the web
    | server to enable functionality for particular domains. A
    | browser gets an entitlement to request credentials for all
    | domains.
 
  | [deleted]
 
| gigatexal wrote:
| Any word if something like this can be shared with Bitwarden?
 
  | Rafert wrote:
  | Why not, it seems to be coming to 1Password:
  | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYFxfchhR1g
 
| mhoad wrote:
| How do I leave the Apple ecosystem if I go all in on this? Sounds
| like major vendor lock in under a deceptive title of "open
| standards" but I'm hoping I'm wrong here. Does anybody happen to
| know yet?
 
  | stjohnswarts wrote:
  | I always was curious about this stuff. I don't want all my eggs
  | in a basket and have to depend completely on others for
  | "logging in". Apple and Google and other Big Corps(tm) have
  | shown they are just fine with terminating your accounts without
  | any recourse and/or warning with no practical way to appeal it.
  | Passwords managers aren't subject to that limitation and all
  | faang companies can do is kill your accounts for their
  | particular services.
 
  | gwbas1c wrote:
  | As long as your account is tied to your email address, there
  | should be something similar to a password reset.
 
  | Ajedi32 wrote:
  | Yeah, that's going to be the next big ecosystem challenge for
  | WebAuthn in my opinion. Ideally platforms would support 3rd
  | party password managers, so you could manage your keys without
  | having to tie your credential database to any one specific
  | platform.
  | 
  | I'm sure as the popularity of WebAuthn grows there'll be more
  | and more demand for cross-platform compatibility until
  | eventually the big players are forced to implement it, but it's
  | going to be kind of rough in the short term until then.
 
    | ChadNauseam wrote:
    | That would be nice. I used Hanko for one service I built that
    | uses WebAuthn+email, so new devices get a one-time code in
    | their email and existing just use WebAuthn. It would be kind
    | of nice not to have to rely on email, but it's better than
    | making people remember passwords.
 
    | mhoad wrote:
    | Except Apple are kind of notorious about avoiding cross
    | platform compatibility which is why I ask. Find them hard to
    | trust at this point.
    | 
    | I can already hear them making the "we can't because it will
    | impact users security" argument in my head.
 
      | stetrain wrote:
      | For normal passwords they currently seem to support third
      | party password managers just fine, including direct
      | integration in Safari and the iOS keyboard.
      | 
      | You can also export everything from iCloud Keychain to use
      | with another password manager.
      | 
      | They could always use Passkeys as an opportunity to lock
      | things down but it would be in direct contrast to what they
      | have been doing with password management recently.
 
  | floatboth wrote:
  | Just add more authenticators to every RP (site you auth into).
  | From the point of view of an RP, "your account in the Apple
  | ecosystem" here is the _exact_ same thing as  "one of your
  | Yubikeys", basically.
 
    | jml7c5 wrote:
    | That seems like an enormous pain if you have dozens or
    | hundreds of services. It could take hours to do this one at a
    | time. (I'm assuming one minute per service, though that
    | depends on how hard it is to find the "add another
    | authenticator" page for each service.)
    | 
    | It's possible I'm unaware that there is a simple protocol for
    | this. Am I incorrect here?
 
      | Spivak wrote:
      | Yeah this is absolutely not feasible, I have ~200 separate
      | accounts in my password manager right now just for me
      | personally.
 
        | danieldk wrote:
        | I also have hundreds of accounts. But there are ~10
        | services that are far more important to me and where I
        | care a lot about security beyond passwords (Fastmail,
        | Dropbox, GitHub, Google Apps, Bank, government websites,
        | etc.). I use most of them already with an U2F key and
        | I'll use them with Passkey.
        | 
        | The hundreds of other sites will probably take years to
        | support Passkeys (they don't support U2F either). I can
        | convert them when they support it and I happen to do
        | something else account-wise.
        | 
        | I don't think it's a huge issue.
 
      | zamalek wrote:
      | You are 100% correct that you need to add it to each
      | service. This is a consequence of an intentional decision
      | (keys cannot be duplicated). Streamlining it would
      | definitely be an improvement.
      | 
      | That being said, it's not a problem in the real-world
      | because FIDO is so sparsely supported. Hopefully PassKey
      | speeds things along.
 
        | eurasiantiger wrote:
        | Could it be automated by a third-party service?
        | 
        | How much would you be willing to pay for such a service?
        | ;)
 
        | mensetmanusman wrote:
        | Streamlining would be an improvement, but it opens an
        | attack vector.
        | 
        | Unfortunately, security and usability are always in
        | balance.
 
        | zamalek wrote:
        | I should have been more specific. Test how many clicks it
        | takes to add a key to one of your "mainstream" accounts.
        | We would hope that services which support FIDO eventually
        | gravitate to a single UX language, that also reduces the
        | time taken to register new keys.
 
        | zozbot234 wrote:
        | The relevant WebAuthn standard actually supports keys
        | regardless of whether they can be duplicated. Even
        | "virtual", software-only keys are supported. It's up to
        | each individual service whether they allow the user to
        | enroll such keys.
 
      | floatboth wrote:
      | Well, realistically not all services will support
      | WebAuthn... spending an hour to handle a dozen important
      | ones doesn't sound like a big deal to me.
 
      | drexlspivey wrote:
      | You should always add at least two keys for every service
      | in case you lose the first anyway. That was the case even
      | before Apple passkey so just keep doing the same.
 
      | skybrian wrote:
      | For less important accounts, you could use OAuth with
      | another site. (For example, maybe use GitHub to
      | authenticate for other developer sites.)
 
      | Hamuko wrote:
      | It's probably more painful than that.
      | 
      | Let's say that I have two laptops, a MacBook Air and a
      | Lenovo ThinkPad. I create an account with an Apple Passkey
      | on a website. I can now log into my account on the MacBook
      | Air, but not on the Lenovo ThinkPad.
      | 
      | How do I register my ThinkPad? I need to log into my
      | existing account to add a new authenticator (Windows Hello
      | in this case). Does the website offer an email link I can
      | use to log into the account? Do I have a backup code that I
      | need to use? Do I need to set a password and log in the
      | normal way (thus removing the advertised phishing and
      | database leak benefits)?
 
  | [deleted]
 
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I think we need a browser level or OS level notification about
| _which_ passwordless service we used last time.
| 
| Did we use Gmail, Twitter, Signin with Apple, Github, Linkedin,
| or do I actually have something stored in my password manager
| associated with an email and if so, did I store it in the
| browser's password manager, the OS's password manager, or my
| third party password manager?
 
  | dstroot wrote:
  | Such a great point. I forget all the time. Next auth service I
  | write will remember this for you and prompt you based on the
  | service you used last time. Take my upvote!
 
  | pvg wrote:
  | The browser and the OS credentials managers essentially
  | obsolete the third party password manger so that part is sort
  | of 'solved'. Integration between the browser and OS one (with
  | sync) is quite a bit trickier but the real blocker is that
  | Apple and Google aren't much interested in solving it. The
  | terawatts of brain power that went into the anonymized COVID
  | tracker phone thing which turned out to be largely pointless
  | could be applied to this, it just doesn't feel very likely.
 
  | dkonofalski wrote:
  | Why do you use more than one password manager? I have disabled
  | all password managers in every app that I use except for the
  | one I store things in. I have multiple folders with their own
  | passwords too but they're all stored via the same solution.
 
    | yieldcrv wrote:
    | Because Google Chrome on iOS pops up asking to remember a
    | password
    | 
    | Safari on iOS suggests a password even if I'm trying to paste
    | on in from my password manager
    | 
    | OSX can be the same way
    | 
    | They all sync
    | 
    | and I never bothered to disable them because I never thought
    | about it, but sometimes I'm in a rush with a service I think
    | I'll never use again and use the suggested solution in one of
    | the browsers
 
      | jerf wrote:
      | Unfortunately, and I hate to "victim blame" (though you say
      | you are not yet a victim), I think you have to take some
      | responsibility and use a password manager with
      | deliberation. IMHO the browsers all make this worse by
      | giving you something that seems to work and your first
      | notice that it doesn't anymore is when it stops, which is a
      | _terrible_ way for a security feature to work, but
      | obviously they have incentives to lock you in, and boy oh
      | boy is this one of the biggest ways that a browser can lock
      | you in.
      | 
      | I think you should resist sooner rather than later and
      | switch to something cross-browser and third-party.
      | 
      | But it's up to you, of course.
 
    | tyingq wrote:
    | >Why do you use more than one password manager?
    | 
    | Work vs home is one driver.
    | 
    | And for some cases, "Login with Google" or similar is nice
    | because it integrates Google pay, removes sign-up friction,
    | etc. I'm aware it has downsides, but it remains useful in
    | some niche areas.
 
      | dkonofalski wrote:
      | Most password managers allow you to separate work from
      | home, though. You don't need to store them in different
      | platforms to have them in different places.
 
  | [deleted]
 
| colemcallister wrote:
| I wonder what this means for services like Plaid and other
| aggregators. Will apps / websites continue on with standard
| username/password option?
 
  | vorpalhex wrote:
  | I'm ok if Plaid loses their model.
 
| acka wrote:
| Sorry for the somewhat but not quite off topic post, but can we
| please prevent HN from becoming yet another Apple billboard?
| There are more than enough of those already. Thank you.
| 
| Yes I've heard that there may be some Apple manifestation going
| on or something but to have every little Apple tidbit hoisted
| directly to the front page (at least 7 articles and counting) is
| a bit much imho.
| 
| Downvote me if you must, but I think it is important to have my
| opinion heard, and I don't think I am the only one.
 
  | majewsky wrote:
  | That's just how Apple does their announcements: in big piles at
  | few dates. The alternative would be to dribble them out slowly.
  | As someone who is not particularly interested in Apple news
  | either, I actually prefer this. Better get it out of the way in
  | one fell swoop than have one announcement every other week that
  | dominates the discussion all the time. Things being as they
  | are, there are 3-4 Apple events per year, and so there are
  | 48-49 weeks without big Apple news.
 
  | simplify wrote:
  | This post is related to a large number of developers and
  | startups (read: HN users), many of which have at least an iOS
  | app or support safari. I don't see what the problem is.
 
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