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GOTO - The Brightest Minds in Tech
Unlocking the Web: Exploring WebAuthn & Beyond • Eli Holderness & Mark Rendle
Jan 5, 2024
Mark Rendle interviews Eli Holderness, a developer advocate at Scaleway, about WebAuthn and the future of web authentication. They discuss topics such as public key cryptography, hardware security tokens, passwordless authentication challenges, data privacy, and the potential impact of WebAssembly on cloud computing. The conversation also touches on preferences in search engines, data bunkers, quantum computers, and casual interests in linguistics and retro gaming.
27:42
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Quick takeaways
- WebAuthn utilizes hardware security tokens to provide secure and standardized authentication on the web without passwords, but usability concerns and the risk of losing tokens remain.
- The use of pass keys as authentic factors for logging into websites simplifies the authentication process but raises concerns about centralizing user authentication credentials and data privacy.
Deep dives
WebAuthn: Authenticating without passwords
WebAuthn is a set of specifications developed by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) that allows for secure and standardized authentication on the web without passwords. It utilizes hardware security tokens, such as USB sticks or NFC-enabled devices, that contain private keys and perform all cryptographic operations on the device itself. These tokens can be used as a security factor, confirming the user's identity without the need for passwords. The tokens communicate with the browser using the client to authenticator protocol (CTAP), ensuring a seamless user experience without compromising security. While WebAuthn provides an innovative and secure approach, there are usability concerns, such as keeping track of the hardware tokens and the risk of losing them.
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