But in general I haven't felt these are secure enough for the reason you say.

While my practical threat model today would make passkeys seem great, the theoretical future threat model in my head does not support it.

So the only real risk is key extraction, hardware key extraction is always possible but likely incredibly expensive, so for most threat models it is not an issue. (Software key extraction or side channels is a different problem which may be easier but in theory is not possible.)

- a PIN is hard to memorize, so people are more likely to use personally-relevant or common numbers, whereas a password can be easily be both complex and memorable - it's easy to burn through even 10 login attempts through any combination of temporary/permanent disability, stress, being drunk, damaged device... - a wipe-after-failed-attempts system is trivial to abuse, be it by a prankster or a real adversary - it's much easier to see someone's PIN over their shoulder or film them entering it

(This does depend on the specific key/protocol.)

The whole point of a passkey is that it’s something you have, not know:

- you can’t guess it because it’s a really long encryption key

- you can’t phish it because using a passkey does not give the passkey to the site, it just proves that you have the key (typical priv/pub key auth)

- you can’t steal it because passkeys are meant to never be moved from the device — it’s supposed to be impossible to extract them, as they’re supposed to live on a secure enclave type chip that is impossible to extract from

So, no, not like a password manager

Most folks store passwords in password managers and don't use their brains to retrieve them.

In my experience, that’s a notebook or piece of scrap paper next to the PC with all their usernames and passwords scribbled on it.

That being said, all of the friends and extended family members that I have helped with computer issues have chosen to save several passwords in their browser’s autofill. Yet, none of them knew that they could view and edit these passwords.

sure they do if, unless you want to be held in contempt of court for not providing the information.

The State of Utah instructed the jury in State vs. Valdez to infer that a suspect was guilty because he refused to provide his password to the police. On appeal, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that he had the right to withhold his password according to the 5th Amendment, and he shouldn't face negative consequences for doing so. The state appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing various other state and Federal courts which have made conflicting rulings on this same issue.

Sixteen states (Indiana, Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas) just filed a motion asking the Court to hear the case: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-1020/307804/202...

Quoting that brief:

"[C]ourts have issued orders requiring persons to unlock devices or provide passcodes. But courts across the country are divided as to whether the Fifth Amendment bars such orders. [...] The Court should grant certiorari to provide guidance on how the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against self-incrimination applies in the modern context of electronic devices."

The Court has yet to decide if they'll hear arguments: https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/do...

More info/commentary here: https://reason.com/volokh/2023/12/14/is-compelled-decryption... (But I recommend going directly to the primary source material—legal documents in Supreme Court cases are very accessible, even to non-lawyers.)

In practice, juries will take a refusal to divulge a password as evidence of guilt, the cops will use it as an excuse for even greater brutality, the FBI is perfectly willing to hold you without trial for years on end, and in most cases they don't need it anyway because everything lives on someone else's computer and they're perfectly willing to hand your data over if they haven't already. Furthermore, because the defense is founded on the principle that the password serves as evidence that you owned the encrypted data, if the prosecution is able to prove that you owned the encrypted data in any other way, that protection goes away.

  > In Boucher, production of the unencrypted 
  > drive was deemed not to be a self-incriminating
  > act, as the government already had
  > sufficient evidence to tie the encrypted
  > data to the defendant

You can certainly be compelled in a black site torture den, but most people don't have that as a looming threat yet.

Multiple people have been held in contempt for refusing to provide an encryption password by US courts.