You can do this with Passkeys. You can write your Passkey down on a post-it, or memorize it and cross the border with it, or anything you want.

This thread has urged me to write a post clarifying some of the misconceptions I always see:

https://www.stavros.io/posts/clearing-up-some-passkeys-misco...

Thank you. It is disheartening that so many HN readers would rather imagine how passkeys work, and freak out at their own imaginings, than just learn the real thing.

Yep, that's what frustrates me as well, especially for a technology that will be a massive gift to both security and usability.

Have a look around this thread. Lots of smart people having difficulties figuring out how this works. This is a bad sign. It shouldn't be this hard to figure out the basics.

I don't see people having trouble grasping the technical specifics, I see a lot of people having knee-jerk reactions and reacting to their own assumptions of how Passkeys work.

Because you are a) not explaining as well as you seem to believe and b) reacting with hostility and snobbery when you are called out on that fact.

> It shouldn't be this hard to figure out the basics

Why not? There are lots of great things in the world that are easy and a joy to use, but fairly challenging to learn the technical details of. The electricity grid, airplanes, microwave ovens, you name it. Tons of straightforward user experiences that take some work to understand.

Somewhat fair criticism, but also somewhat unfair. A lot of us are trying to read up and understand, and so we post questions in forums like these with knowledgeable folks, in hopes to enhance our understanding and reduce our concern.

One counter point though is that... if there is a new lifesaving technology, and even the somewhat IT literate / somewhat geeky / folks who WANT to understand it, are struggling... it may not be as simple and easy and safe. If I ask "how do I backup my passwords", I'll have 10 million folks answer "use a password manager, backup the file". When I ask similar questions with passkeys, the breadth,inconsistency and complexity of answers is as insightful as it is worrisome.

No complaints with questions, but many of the questions are in the form of assertions that are incorrect.

"Does that mean that passkeys can't be shared between users or devices?" is a 100% reasonable question.

"Passkeys are a step backward because they can't be shared between users or devices" is not really a question, it's an opinion based on imagination.

And passwords are just as complex. How do you securely share a login with another user?

Yes, there's complexity, but it's complexity born of a change in paradigm. The actual new thing is either equally simple or simpler than traditional passwords, once you factor in scenarios like backup, transfer, multi-device sync, sharing, etc. It's just different.

That's really helpful. Do you know of an open source passkey client?

Someone has linked a few implementations in the thread here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36238001

> You can do this with Passkeys.

Maybe in theory. In practice, I couldn't even look at the passkey Google has created on my android phone. So you absolutely cannot write it down.

If you don't like Google's implementation, you should use another one. It doesn't make much sense to say "I can't do X with my thing, therefore I can't do it with anything".

The fact remains that, if you want a Passkey you can write down, you can do that.

> If you don't like Google's implementation, you should use another one.

Once more, maybe this is possible in theory. In reality, I can't find any way to use apple's passkey implementation on my android phone.

Can you point me to a site? I've had no issue using Google's Passkeys without actually using a Passkey.

That was helpful but there's a difference between "possible" and "feasible in practice for the vast majority of users". Eg, you can theoretically develop your own passkey device as you say, but that doesn't mean most people can.

I'm not sure I really prefer passkeys less than passwords but I do think some of the "misconceptions" aren't really misconceptions, but realistic concerns about what happens in practice. It might be better to be up front about these than dismissive, because that's where the problems in practice develop.

But you don't need most people to develop their own Passkey device any more than you need most people to make a phone.

A company will make it, vote with your wallet and buy the one that suits you.

I'm looking forward to BitWarden supporting Passkeys, for example, as that's my preferred way of using them.

If I have an iPhone, Mac, Windows PC, and Android Tablet I want to know and talk about what I can do with Passkeys, not what could theoretically be done. After all, I'm not looking at Passkeys for an academic exercise.

If that means "install BitWarden on all of your devices. The devices will work with it and you can backup/export your key locally" that's fantastic, I'd love to see a guide on how to get that going on all of my devices. However, if that means "theoretically something like BitWarden could do what you want it to do, if they built it, allowed export, and the devices all started allowing it or you replace your devices with ones that do" then I really don't care what the theory says could be done, I functionally can't and will just stick to passwords for now.

That's up to you, but "that isn't possible yet with this two-month-old technology" is very different from "that isn't possible".

Well, that's my point. People are referring to what is possible today but your "misconceptions" are responses to what could be possible in the future.

Well, I disagree. People aren't saying "I want to use this today and can't because X is missing", they're saying "I'm opposed to this technology because X will never be possible", when it will be.

Look at this comment, as the first example I found:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36237683

It basically says "Passkeys = USB keys", which is wrong. If you don't like the tradeoffs that specific authenticator makes, use another passkey authenticator type.

"Passkeys are strictly less secure" is just objectively wrong.

While I do agree that thread is different, it'd make sense to reply to that thread about it instead of this one.

I don't think it is different. I mostly see people dismissing Passkeys as a technology because of X or Y thing that "they don't do", when that's either a mistaken assumption, or something they don't do right now.

Mistaken assumptions, sure. What "mostly" people do maybe, it depends on those conversations. What Passkeys might do in the future is irrelevant to whether it makes sense for people to be dismissing them now, though, and confusing/frustrating to read about in these kinds of threads (maybe not other threads).

Today, you can seamlessly sync your passwords, export them, and utilize auto-fill integration across the aforementioned devices. Not "it could be possible based on the design if the manufacturers and apps wanted to do it", it is possible.

Today, it is not possible to do the same on those devices using Passkeys. That's not the same as claiming "it's guaranteed to forever be impossible because of the inherent design of Passkeys" and reading every conversation as such could well be the source of why the misconceptions seem so common. There is little to no guarantee from any of these manufacturers it will ever be possible either, so predicating the conclusion on that possibility of change definitely occuring isn't sensible. Again, not because the Passkey spec can't, the devices/implementations may just not want to. Remember, the spec doesn't require devices and implementations allow it to happen, it just accommodates for the possibility.

If implementations available for people to actually use change in the future, so will the dismissals. In the meantime, the dismissals of what's not possible are not misconceptions just because it's possible it may change down the line. It still remains impossible right now, even though I'm hopeful it will become possible in the future.

And again, sure - other threads probably have a lot of flat mistakes or different claims. But, if I wanted to discuss what other threads are saying, I wouldn't be reading and replying in this one.

Thank you for eloquently putting this. I am exactly in that boat. I'm reasonably IT savvy but not a security researcher. I help a large number of not tech savvy people with advice.

I don't care to either dismiss or evangelize the technology based on what it may or may not be able to do in the future. My questions are whether these are user friendly and usable today or should I wait and see. I feel all my concerns of "if I and my family adopt this right now, today, on my actual devices, what are my risks and capabilities? How can I safety my family and backup things and set them up for success?" Are answered with "in the future, in theory, somebody somewhere will come up with this solution which is not currently strictly prohibited "