[Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] Passkey Google Chrome update

Thu Oct 17 03:06:38 PDT 2024

 Sorry about the transposition. KeepassDX is the app for Android.
As for passkey support for keepass2android and KeepassDX:
https://github.com/PhilippC/keepass2android/issues/2099#issuecomment-2110501145
https://github.com/Kunzisoft/KeePassDX/issues/1421
So it's on the radar, but not yet available. Portability of the Keepass database is supported however, and there are Android password managers which do use passkeys. This circles back to Bitwarden and its open-source fork. 
-- Bob Primak
    On Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 04:15:03 AM EDT, Drew King <dking65 at kingconsulting.us> wrote:  

Here are some screenshots and accompanying description that might help everybody get on the same page with regard to how the stuff works and more how much it doesn't work.

I can log into my Amazon account on a desktop computer using my passkey that is stored in my password manager KeepassXC, however I cannot do the same thing in a browser or in the app on my cell phone.

Not to nitpick, but the Android app name is KeepassDX NOT XD.

There is another very popular Android app that I use called Keepass2Android. Neither one of these has been updated to support passkeys however there has been discussion in their forums about how to do it only one app is developed by a single person as far as I can tell and I don't think he knows how to do what he needs to do.

I have passkey set up on my Amazon account, and it is stored in my Keepass databases.

Here are some screenshots:

KeepassXC on Windows, Mac, and Linux REQUIRES the matching KeepassXC browser extension to be installed and paired with the database.  It is the browser extension that detects the website wanting to set up a new passkey, and it intercepts that communication. The actual Pass Key information is stored in the database in the advanced section under additional attributes. Cell phones don't have browser extensions and the Android app doesn't know what to do with this data that is stored in the database.

This next picture is of the Android software KeepassDX and you can see in the picture that it sees the passkey information:

These next shots are from Amazon trying to log me in using a passkey stored on my cell phone:

Amazon and Microsoft are asking me to use a QR code and scan it with the device that has the pass key but the phone which can scan QR codes doesn't know to open my password manager to complete the task. There is a breakdown in communication.

Drew.

 On 10/17/2024 3:39 AM, Robert Primak wrote:

 From what I researched, KeypassXC is the app for Windows, Mac and Linux, and KeepassXD is for Android. If Syncthing is also used, the ecosystem could operate entirely without a Cloud account. The database could also be stored as the original or a copy on USB media, which would make it available to any device as long as you have the USB storage with the database on it at hand.  
  KeypassXC and KeypassXD use the same database format, but reading with KeypassXD from an SD Card can be complicated by file system issues. (SD Cards use a DOS (FAT) format, which often can't be read by modern Android without going through some hoops.) 
  KeypassXC and KeypassXD looks like a fairly complete solution, with the database stored on some sort of modern USB storage like a flash drive. An Android phone would also need to be able to connect the flash drive to USB-C, which is trivial these days.  
  Compatibility issues between Google and Microsoft implementations of passkeys are not the fault of the standards people. Those companies are not using the standards suggested by the FIDO Alliance, but proprietary variations. The fault is with them, not the Alliance. There is in fact only one standard officially recommended for passkeys.  
  -- Bob Primak  
      On Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 01:46:31 AM EDT, Drew King via LCTG <lctg at lists.toku.us> wrote:  

Correct.

Right now 99% of the people who have implemented passkeys have no idea where they are or how to manage them, they just know that they work somehow.

That is one of the reasons why it is a good idea to use a single platform for the use and implementation of passkeys. Passkeys are still in flux regarding the way they are managed because there's no standard for sharing passkey information between different products.  If you're entirely in an apple ecosystem then you have  coordination, but if you want to use even one Windows computer it throws everything out of balance because there's no sharing between Windows and Apple. 

My preference is to have all passkeys stored in my password manager. Unfortunately, my password manager is not under management of only one developer or organization.

I use an open source password manager on my desktop platform and on my mobile devices and the developer of the desktop app and the developer of the mobile app are different, and they have not coordinated in any way on how to share and use passkeys.

KeepassXC supports passkeys on Windows, Linux and Mac. The information stored in the database however does not coordinate with Android or Apple mobile devices. Unlike with BitWarden which develops the desktop app and the mobile app, Keepass is too open right now. 

If you use bitWarden on your PC and on your phone, you can use passkeys and have them all stored inside your BitWarden database rather than randomly stored in different places on different devices. Microsoft stores passkeys one way and Google does it another way. Right now, the best way to collect all of your pass keys in one place so they can be easily managed is in a password manager that supports passkeys across all hardware devices.  BitWarden is an example of one company that provides passKeys across Android, Apple, Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Google is trying to make it easy to use passkeys across Windows and Android by having you store all of your password information in their browser password manager, which many people don't want to do.

The passkey rollout I thought was going to be clean, but it is not turning out to be that way. The password manager that I use on my phone, is coded by only one person and that makes it very difficult for his customers to count on him to be able to implement passkeys with other open source developers that have no connection to him.

Drew

  On 10/17/2024 1:13 AM, Rich Moffitt wrote:

     Minor point, but something to keep in mind: you're not so much deleting the passkeys from the lost device as you are invalidating the keys stored on that device for use on a particular service. This also means that if you have passkeys for 5 different web sites on a single device, you may have to invalidate the passkeys on each of the 5 sites independently (unless they all use the same authentication service). 

  On Wed, Oct 16, 2024, 10:04 PM Drew King via LCTG <lctg at lists.toku.us> wrote:

All,

Additional info regarding Passkeys:

This is an article that covers a lot of information and answers a lot of questions about passkeys. One question that was asked this morning at the meeting was what happens if you lose your device that you installed a passkey on. If somebody has your device and they can log into it or unlock it then they have your passkeys. This article covers how to log into your Google account from a computer and delete passkeys that are on your lost or stolen device.

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/13548313?hl=en&sjid=13375659196123546943-NA

 -- 
 Drew King 

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