On this episode of The Vergecast, we figure out passkeys once and for all.

Passkeys: how do they work? No, like, seriously. It’s clear that the industry is increasingly betting on passkeys as a replacement for passwords, a way to use the internet that is both more secure and more user-friendly. But for all that upside, it’s not always clear how we, the normal human users, are supposed to use passkeys. You’re telling me it’s just a thing… that lives on my phone? What if I lose my phone? What if you steal my phone?

  • @[email protected]English
    16•9 months ago

    I use my password manager to generate the answer. My mothers maiden name is CzyHcjMKMfwT4tZ7HXbavQrOPo and my first pet was Avhu6FqPTRsWwafA, but we called him Avhu for short.

    • capitalEnglish
      3•9 months ago

      I used to make them quite long until I was asked to confirm my identity over the phone using one once hahaha.

      Now they’re max 10 alphanumeric characters and all lower case but still random.

      • @[email protected]English
        2•9 months ago

        I think it makes it even better when I have to read out my 30 character alphanumeric first girlfriend’s dog’s birth town’s name over the phone… they’re certainly gonna know it’s me calling lol

        The absolute best is when you get to choose the security question and you can just put “read the Bitwarden secret.”

        • @[email protected]English
          2•9 months ago

          I like to think that if enough people ended up taking 10 minutes on a support call to validate someone’s identity, when it should take 10 seconds, maybe the companies would learn to stop asking stupid security questions. I like to think that, but in reality nothing will change.