[systemd-devel] crypto: to show stars or not to show them

Lennart Poettering lennart at poettering.net
Tue Mar 29 10:06:14 PDT 2011


On Tue, 29.03.11 18:56, Jan Engelhardt (jengelh at medozas.de) wrote:

> 
> On Tuesday 2011-03-29 18:41, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> >
> >Ah, ok. I see. If BS is handled like this only as very first keypress
> >(and not later on anymore) this indeed makes more sense.
> >
> >I have now fixed git to accept both TAB and BS as silent mode switch
> >key. TAB at any time, and BS only if pressed as very first key on the
> >prompt. 
> >Everybody happy?
> 
> No. We don't need two keys to perform the same action. \t can go away.

I think it has one big advantage: if you types something and then want
to hide it you can use that. Think: you type your passphrase, you notice
somebody looks over your shoulder, you press TAB and he's left in the
dark. An since this is strictly one-way even he can even go and abduct
you while you are typing, but he won't be able to make the asterisks
visible again.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc.


More information about the systemd-devel mailing list