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jesseendahlyesterday at 6:50 PM1 replyview on HN

>Passkeys and 2FA are a usability nightmare if you need to recover, or all the security vanishes if you put usable recovery mechanisms for the passkey or the second factor.

Most providers continue to offer email-based recovery in the case that the end-user loses access to their primary factor, regardless of whether the primary factor is a password or a passkey.

And email based account recovery does not make the security advantages of passkeys disappear, which are:

- credential that's guaranteed to be unique

- credential that's guaranteed to be strong

- credential that cannot be phished (due to cryptographic binding to the domain at the time of credential creation)

- changes the incentives for compromising servers (they're nothing worth stealing from the server -- only public keys)

- if/when an app/website transitions to retiring password-based authN, then it will entirely eliminates credential stuffing attacks


Replies

realusernameyesterday at 7:47 PM

That doesn't really explain if I can use said website on my phone with a password if I login with a passkey on my computer