Why do you think that? Public key authentication systems are invariably more secure, and a wide variety are also simpler for the end user to use.
It’s a misconception that they are in opposition to each other. Why would they be? One’s about knowing who’s doing something and the other is about how much effort it takes to do it.
Because in general, making things more difficult for an adverse party has great potential for also having side effects for proper users.
And conversely, making things easier for proper users very often also makes it easier for adversaries.
You’re right that it’s not a strict 100% rule, but it’s so common a pattern that keeping it in mind when making security decisions (to avoid fulfilling it or at least weigh risks) is a good practice.
Public key authentication is more secure than nothing, and is more convenient than shared secrets and symmetric encryption, but bit for bit the secret material necessary for public key cryptographic schemes to be secure is more data than is required for symmetric algorithms.
But more to your point, public key cryptography is basically a usability nightmare. In order to talk to anyone you need to first validate their key using an entirely out of band scheme you already trust, and if you don’t do that then all the end to end encryption in the world is theatre.
Of course I’m being hyperbolic, it’s the internet, but seriously there a lot of people feeling secure with public key systems that are either totally insecure, or could be insecure and they wouldn’t know, or are secure to some random bystander but insecure to people and organizations that are often included in people’s threat models.
Sure, all that’s true. But which of those criticisms doesn’t also apply to a password or preshared key? Other than size of key-material, but it’s a fast enough communication medium that any key less than a megabyte is effectively zero.
I probably don’t need to point out how basically every communication on the Internet is based on public key crypto that we don’t even think about, but I want to ask how you get your shared key to websites when you visit?
Do you use any tools like signal, telegram and so on?
My point isn’t that public key systems are perfect, far from it. It’s that it’s wrong to say security and usability are contrary to one another.
People who think the public key solution is cumbersome are often comparing “no security” to “ideal security”.
For public key to be secure from man in the middle you need a trusted out of band channel or attestation scheme.
For a symmetrical key system you need the same channel.
Without that channel public key has a message interaction where an attacker can swap in their key but is otherwise secure. The symmetric key system is entirely broken.
“Easy case” public key systems are usually a fair bit more secure than a similar level of effort in other schemes, and likewise a given level of security confidence is easier to get to with public key than a password.
Finally, and most importantly: your phone quite likely supports multiple levels of authentication.
You can get into my phone if you have my fingers. This let’s you see my calendar, emails and (many) other things. It doesn’t let you into all of my files, financial apps, or even device settings.
As soon as the word “convenient” is used, you know it will affect security.
Yep, they technically didn’t claim it was to make it more secure.
The fact that it’s under the security tab means they technically DID.
Belongs to the category.
Which is correct, because it concerns security.
Where else should they put it? Display? Sounds? Accounts?
Accounts maybe for work profiles.
This is always the tradeoff. Security must always impose a cost.
Why do you think that? Public key authentication systems are invariably more secure, and a wide variety are also simpler for the end user to use.
It’s a misconception that they are in opposition to each other. Why would they be? One’s about knowing who’s doing something and the other is about how much effort it takes to do it.
Because in general, making things more difficult for an adverse party has great potential for also having side effects for proper users. And conversely, making things easier for proper users very often also makes it easier for adversaries.
You’re right that it’s not a strict 100% rule, but it’s so common a pattern that keeping it in mind when making security decisions (to avoid fulfilling it or at least weigh risks) is a good practice.
Public key authentication is more secure than nothing, and is more convenient than shared secrets and symmetric encryption, but bit for bit the secret material necessary for public key cryptographic schemes to be secure is more data than is required for symmetric algorithms.
But more to your point, public key cryptography is basically a usability nightmare. In order to talk to anyone you need to first validate their key using an entirely out of band scheme you already trust, and if you don’t do that then all the end to end encryption in the world is theatre.
Of course I’m being hyperbolic, it’s the internet, but seriously there a lot of people feeling secure with public key systems that are either totally insecure, or could be insecure and they wouldn’t know, or are secure to some random bystander but insecure to people and organizations that are often included in people’s threat models.
Sure, all that’s true. But which of those criticisms doesn’t also apply to a password or preshared key? Other than size of key-material, but it’s a fast enough communication medium that any key less than a megabyte is effectively zero.
I probably don’t need to point out how basically every communication on the Internet is based on public key crypto that we don’t even think about, but I want to ask how you get your shared key to websites when you visit?
Do you use any tools like signal, telegram and so on?
My point isn’t that public key systems are perfect, far from it. It’s that it’s wrong to say security and usability are contrary to one another.
People who think the public key solution is cumbersome are often comparing “no security” to “ideal security”.
For public key to be secure from man in the middle you need a trusted out of band channel or attestation scheme.
For a symmetrical key system you need the same channel.
Without that channel public key has a message interaction where an attacker can swap in their key but is otherwise secure. The symmetric key system is entirely broken.
“Easy case” public key systems are usually a fair bit more secure than a similar level of effort in other schemes, and likewise a given level of security confidence is easier to get to with public key than a password.
Finally, and most importantly: your phone quite likely supports multiple levels of authentication.
You can get into my phone if you have my fingers. This let’s you see my calendar, emails and (many) other things. It doesn’t let you into all of my files, financial apps, or even device settings.