Passkeys and the competition for your consent
In Passkey technology is elegant, but it’s most definitely not usable security, Dan Goodin makes the case that passkeys are too difficult to use, despite their tremendous promise as easy-to-use security tools. He points out that platforms like iCloud, Google, and 1Password are constantly stepping over each other, fighting to be the platform that stores one's passkey, causing a mess of popups and “recommendations” that leave users confused. Imagine if several pieces of furniture in your house battled over the right to store your car keys. Would you ever be able to find them? That's what we have here.
This doesn't just happen with passkeys, I'm afraid. It's everywhere. For instance, my mom often has trouble finding her spreadsheets and Word documents. She uses an iMac, but OneDrive unceremoniously slurps them up, not even listing them as files on her filesystem, then charges her for the privilege when her OneDrive account runs out of space. The Google Photos app on iOS does something similar in a particularly egregious and slimy tactic that has left me warning friends and family never to install it. Then there's the frantic demands from browsers, search engines, and more: “USE ME! USE ME! USE ME!” It's awful, and it causes so much confusion, as people end up using platforms they never intended to.
This seems like yet another case where Congress could and should pass some reasonable legislation to address a problem everyone faces, along with making read-only social media accounts easier to use without temptation and requiring that tech companies collaborate on databases of phishing sites.