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

[Jan Engelhardt]

I have been made aware of showing stars when entering passwords for 
crypttab volumes through systemd's integrated scripts/programs is 
considered a "feature". Well, I don't concur there. Potential overseers 
could count the stars, which is not so thrilling. Which is probably why 
UNIX and/or its descendants have had no-stars password prompt pretty 
much throughout (/bin/passwd, ssh, and whatelse you can think of).

Some argue that not showing stars makes it harder to backspace. That may 
be true to some extent, since you don't know when to stop hitting 
backspace. This in turn has led some programs to simply implement either 
three-stars-per-char, but what is really wanted in such a case is simply 
a way to merely start over. Sometimes enter works (in case of login 
prompts that repeat forever, like getty or xdms), and for those programs 
that would like to exit some day (passwd, cryptsetup, etc.), catching ^C 
or perhaps ^\ might be in order.