It's not an assertion. It's a fact. You need to be in control of the auth method or you can be controlled through it, plain and simple.

People that by into systems they don't control are shooting themselves in the foot because, when push comes to shove, a for-profit company will always chose profit over individually choice. It's short sighted to think otherwise.

Yeah that's great, I don't subscribe to that particular religion but respect your beliefs. I think most people are best served having their primary online identity be a Google account, for multiple reasons. I'm aware that a vocal contingent of technologists on HN find that take appalling, but I assure you, my take is a normie take, and also the modal take among security people.

Either way: Passkeys themselves don't require you to use Google, or any particular big tech firm. It's an open protocol.

"A dad took photos of his toddler for a doctor – Google flagged him as a criminal"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32538805

This was more than two years ago. Despite the title, many parents are victims to this. To this very day, Google continues to defame them and deny access to their accounts. Long after the police cleared these victims' names. Long after the NYT confronted Google about this.

So is this what "normies" should be subject to? A digital totalitarian hellscape in which a trillion dollar advertising giant rummages through people's digital lives, randomly takes away their entire digital identity every time their flawed cyber-oracle tells them to, and uses their vast corporate resources to harass and defame?

That's not a world I want to live in. I don't want anyone to be subject to that kind of tyranny. It's not about any "religious belief," but rather basic human decency.

You don't need to involve Google or Microsoft or Apple to use passkeys.

Your whole argument is a misunderstanding of how they work.

Are you responding to the right comment? My argument has nothing to do with how passkeys work. I was responding to this:

> Yeah that's great, I don't subscribe to that particular religion but respect your beliefs. I think most people are best served having their primary online identity be a Google account, for multiple reasons. I'm aware that a vocal contingent of technologists on HN find that take appalling, but I assure you, my take is a normie take, and also the modal take among security people.

Do you have an argument that would be persuasive for someone who does not find Richard Stallman rhetoric compelling? It's OK if you don't, but then there isn't much for us to talk about.

It's compelling to everyone who doesn't randomly want to lose access to all of their online accounts. Everyone who doesn't want the police turned on them when they haven't done anything wrong. Everyone who doesn't want to be wrongly labeled a criminal for the whole world to see. That's basically everyone. If you want these things to happen to you, just like they did to the parents in the NYT article, I guess you'll be the sole exception. But why?

Also, Richard Stallman? Where did that come from? This has nothing to do with free software at all. I'm also capable of drawing my own conclusions without someone else whispering in my ear, if that's what you're suggesting.

He's attempting to discredit you because your belief is strongly held. His comments about 'religious' beliefs are similar... trying to suggest you shouldn't be listened to because you're driven by irrationality.

It's not honest discussion.

> People that by into systems they don't control are shooting themselves in the foot

I don't have any control how any site I didn't build actually handles my password.