Passkeys are just passwords that require a password manager

30 dfabulich 8 8/4/2025, 7:29:47 PM danfabulich.medium.com ↗

Comments (8)

commandersaki · 2h ago
A passkey manager is morally required to do an extra factor of authentication (e.g. fingerprint, Face ID, hardware keys, etc.) when you login, but the site/app has no way of knowing/proving whether that happened; they just get the password.

Thought sites can request hardware attested passkeys? In this case usb keyfob, or passkeys instanced from a secure enclave, etc.?

altmind · 13m ago
Passkeys are the easiest way to lose access to your account.
Darkskiez · 2h ago
Except you can store the passwords on a usb key / remote over bluetooth, and then also keep them secret from the potentially compromised host.
gnabgib · 2h ago
The first passkeys were physical (USB) keys. And you never share the key with a host or server.
lazzlazzlazz · 3h ago
The fact that you can't actually see the passkey is absurd. I understand it's a "feature" prevent phishing — victims have a lot less to share — but it constrains more sophisticated storage and use of passwords.
JohnFen · 5h ago
> To present a passkey, you have to use a password manager.

This is what makes passkeys nonstarters for me.

aldshglkhdg · 2h ago
that isn't true at all.

i regularly use a yubikey as a passkey, and it's entirely orthogonal to any password manager i use. it happily just works on firefox on both mac and linux.

to use a passkey, you need a place to store the passkey. that can be a hardware token, a tpm, or a password manager.

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thescriptkiddie · 1h ago
no they aren't, they are asymetric key pairs