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Re: POP3 password in plaintext?
From: |
Stephen J. Turnbull |
Subject: |
Re: POP3 password in plaintext? |
Date: |
Fri, 03 Oct 2014 19:54:35 +0900 |
Ted Zlatanov writes:
> SJT> No, I really do mean "password-read". Mostly because not all
> SJT> protocols demand authentication immediately on opening a stream. Eg,
> SJT> many sites can be accessed with HTTP, will switch to HTTPS without
> SJT> authentication of the client, then present an HTML document for
> SJT> login.
>
> Clearly that's not possible, because the read password can be used at
> any point by the Lisp code; it's just data from that point on.
Sure, but most of the sites I access work that way. The TLS
connection is basically anonymous, and authentication is done over
that connection. If the site presents a certificate, then you can be
pretty sure it's the right site to give your credentials to, and the
site is happy because it doesn't give you anything but a login screen
until you do give it your credentials, at which point you know the
site and the site knows you and you can do your business together.
> Do you mean we should be able to send a password directly to a
> network or process stream at the C level? That makes a lot of sense
> to me and connects to the idea of "secret" data in the Emacs core.
No, I don't mean anything like that. That may be the right idea, but
I haven't thought carefully about it. I'm just telling you that we
can't depend on sites demanding authentication during the connection
process.