You can follow the steps here to use a previous version of the desktop app to extract the keys: https://gist.github.com/gboudreau/94bb0c11a6209c82418d01a59d958c93

The javascript didn’t seem to send the extracted data anywhere, but I did disconnect from the internet while running the script.

Remote wipes are possible. Log into your Apple/Google account, figure out how to find your device, then perform a remote wipe.

That’s the part where the server doesn’t story any information that an attacker could use to log in. The attacker would need the private key, which is stored inside a secure chip on your device (unless you decide to store it in your password manager). All that’s stored server side, is the public key.

When you’re using a password, the server will store a hashed version of that password. If this is leaked, an attacker can attempt to brute-force this leaked password. If the server didn’t properly store hash the password, a leak simply exposes the password and allows the attacker access. If the user didn’t generate unique passwords for each site/server, that exposes them further to password spraying. In that case an attacker would try these same credentials on multiple sites, potentially giving them access to all these accounts.

In case of passkey, the public key doesn’t need to be secret. The secret part is all on your end (unless you store that secret in the managed vault of your password manager).

I do agree that your risk is quite small if you’re already

• using a decent password manager
• doing that the right way
• have enabled 2FA wherever possible

The biggest difference: nothing sensitive is stored on the server. No passwords, no password hashes, just a public key. No amount of brute forcing, dictionary attacks or rainbow tables can help an attacker log in with a public key.

“But what about phising? If the attacker has the public key, they can pretend to be the actual site and trick the user into logging in.” Only if they also manage to use the same domain name. Like a password manager, passkeys are stored for a specific domain name. If the domain doesn’t match, the passkey won’t be found.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNy_Q9fth-4 gives a pretty good introduction on them.

It gets worse: it’s extremely addictive. Research has shown that habitual users who want to detox die within 48 hours unless they start consuming it again.

Not sure what part you don’t understand, but I’ll try and help: Snopes (a fact checking website) shows that the way links are displayed nowadays (the new link presentation or new way links are presented) on X (formerly Twitter) lacks any sense -> snopes shows the folly of it.

I recently saw this video about the British Library. They collect everything that’s published in the UK (books, magazines, papers, leaflets, flyers, …). One of the librarians makes a pretty good case about the use of collecting and preserving everything. Even (or especially) the things you don’t think are worth preserving.

It’s rather vague to me too, the most helpful summary I found was this one:

In general, the condition applies when:

• The processing isn’t required by law, but there’s a clear benefit to it;
• There is little risk of the processing infringing on data subjects’ privacy; and
• The data subject should reasonably expect their data to be used in that way.

So “we don’t have to do this, and most likely it won’t be privacy sensitive, and you probably already know we want to do this, but you can still opt out”

Source: https://www.itgovernance.eu/blog/en/the-gdpr-legitimate-interest-what-is-it-and-when-does-it-apply

Serves me right for trying to show off :D

Three genders, and 5 words for “the”: der, die, das, dem, den. Depending on the gender of the noun and its function in the sentence.

I’m not convinced by this argument: at the back of the phone is a built-in LED (used as the flash). Which could be used for notifications too.
Phones with OLED screens could use part of the screen as a notification as well. Both of these can be accomplished in software. Currently you have to notice that something happens as it happens, otherwise you need to at leas activate the screen. The notification LED was useful in that you could glance at your phone and see if you missed something.