Anyone else hate how passwords are obscured when typing them?

Discussion in 'Water Cooler' started by cheat-master30, Sep 21, 2009.

  1. cheat-master30

    cheat-master30 Grand Master

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    It's not often I agree with Jakob Nielson, but he's right about this:

    Stop Password Masking (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

    Why can't they just be visible? Most people spend more time online at home or in an office than in some place they could be spied on (and in those circumstances, if your account did get hacked, you've got a far shorter list of possible suspects). Half the pieces of technology which are used in public anyway aren't particularly easy to spy on (if you honestly get someone looking over your shoulder at your passwords being typed in on a blackberry or mobile phone, you pretty much deserve everything you get).

    Anyone else agree? It's even more annoying with .htaccess prompts, which basically makes it so the prompt takes over the browser, cannot easily be made readable and you have to actually cancel or succeed to get the window focus back.
     
  2. Wayne Luke

    Wayne Luke Regular Member

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    While I agree on principle, there are two issues to this...

    1) If you're using a computer in public, there are often looky-loos who can get your password information. We already have people trying to sniff codes from ATMs and wireless credit card terminals. Do they need to be able to get our passwords just by looking at them?

    2) Accepted behavior. If your password isn't masked, some people would consider it unsafe on that virtue alone. People are used to passwords being masked after 20 years of it being like that.

    If you have problems with your own passwords, use Keepass. Install it on a thumb drive and then you can just copy and paste passwords when you need them. No, need to continually type them. Keepass is available for more operating systems including Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, Java, Android, and Windows Mobile.
     
  3. Michael

    Michael Regular Member

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    Someone could easily record your desktop without having any control over the computer and sit reading as you enter your passwords, come back later and use them for whatever they want. Its just an extra preventative measure. If mine werent masked yeah it could be easier to type random generated ones but I would be open to people looking over my shoulder if I was at work, at home I guess it would be useful but anywhere a big no no from me.
     

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