The objective is for American big tech to be the sole gatekeeper for your ability to log in to things. They would love for it to be required for everyone on Earth to own an Apple, Google, or Microsoft device to use the Internet.
I disagree. TFA is extremely muddled in it's thinking, and the appeal to conspiracy is rather distracting from any good points that might exist.
Hence my question about "why though?". The only answer I can see is "user control", but I have no idea what that is. It sounds like a means, but to what end?
If we peel back from the conspiracy theory, it's because account take overs (ATO) by hackers cost companies money. Customer support, lost data, money stolen, fines, etc. So companies don't want people to get hacked. But they know people are lazy and just want to use 12345 as their password. So passkeys are a way to have the user's password be something really good (xkcd 936) and unstealable, assuming no bugs in the software (haha). So it will be harder for users to get hacked, lowering their costs. That passkeys come with some limitations, like oh by the way, now you're stuck paying Apple/Google/1password a subscription fee for the rest of your life, is merely a happy side effect for the corporation.
Complete user control.
Look at "the war on general-purpose computing" for a good perspective.
I don't understand what "Complete user control" means, or how it relates to passkeys?
The objective is for American big tech to be the sole gatekeeper for your ability to log in to things. They would love for it to be required for everyone on Earth to own an Apple, Google, or Microsoft device to use the Internet.
The article explains this quite well.
I disagree. TFA is extremely muddled in it's thinking, and the appeal to conspiracy is rather distracting from any good points that might exist.
Hence my question about "why though?". The only answer I can see is "user control", but I have no idea what that is. It sounds like a means, but to what end?
If we peel back from the conspiracy theory, it's because account take overs (ATO) by hackers cost companies money. Customer support, lost data, money stolen, fines, etc. So companies don't want people to get hacked. But they know people are lazy and just want to use 12345 as their password. So passkeys are a way to have the user's password be something really good (xkcd 936) and unstealable, assuming no bugs in the software (haha). So it will be harder for users to get hacked, lowering their costs. That passkeys come with some limitations, like oh by the way, now you're stuck paying Apple/Google/1password a subscription fee for the rest of your life, is merely a happy side effect for the corporation.
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