[saag] Passkeys is being deployed, device portability messaging is cloudy.

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

I am seeing a great deal of buzz about Passkeys (again) and seeing stories
that passwords are obsolete (again). I am also seeing two arguments being
made about device portability.

A) FIDO doesn't solve the device portability issue and so enabling Passkeys
on my desktop doesn't mean I can use it on my phone.

B) FIDO does solve this problem through bridges and if I use Apple all my
keys will magically sync to all my apple devices, if I use Android... so
portability with silos which could be solved by using a third party
solution.

The problem I am having with B is that 'read the Javascript API' doesn't
give me the feeling this is a problem that is solved as far as users are
concerned. I raised the multiple device issue before the FIDO organization
was set up in 2012.


So I just thought I would remind people that the multiple device problem is
what I designed the Mesh to solve. The problem of managing credentials
across a collection of multiple devices from different vendors is what
brought me to develop the threshold approaches.

The Mesh can roam SSH, S/MIME and code signing keys today. I can easily add
support for WebAuthn. All I need to know is what sockets to plug into on
the various platforms. That is, which keystore identifiers should I use on
each platform.


Now I have added a lot more to my platform than just managing public key
credentials across devices, it can also manage passwords and contacts,
secure data at rest, establish end-to-end secure group discussions and a
lot more but it is not necessary for an application to implement all of
that functionality. Though if you are going to use the Mesh to roam public
key credentials, you will probably want to use it for your password manager
as well.