Re: New feature?

[Michael B. <mb...@fr...>]

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On Saturday 05 June 2004 11:24, Ian MacGregor wrote:
> However, I am now thinking of a another solution.
> How does PwManager encrypt the file? Does PwManager use some system specific
> info (ie. hard drive serial #, a random salt, etc.) as a key when encrypting?
> Or, does it rely soley on the master password?

The password-file is explicitely made portable, so that you can store it
on your NFS server and access it from your main workstation and
your notebook, for example. This would not work, when we depend on hardware.

> You could have PwManager use
> the masterpassword+hard drive serial number+random number to create a grand
> master password and use that to encrypt with instead of just the master
> password. that way a file encrypted on my machine would not decrypt on any
> other machine due to the hard drive serial number and random number being
> different.

It may be an optional feature, but will _never_ be a good default
behaviour, IMHO. People will complain: "Fscking PwManager corrupted my
password file! I can't read it on my new Computer. I've sold my old
one and I didn't make backups". Oh, yea. listen. I can hear tons of emails on
their way... ;)

> This would also defeat a keylogger and mouse mapper -

I can't see how you can say that. Really.
Secure file-format is the one thing, but entering the password
is another. If we have this Hardware dependent file-format, there
can _still_ be some key-loggers installed. Did I miss something?

> and may be
> easier to code.

Oh, don't expect that.

> But, I also could not use that file on any of my other three
> computers. But, that would make it more secure.
>
> I am just trying to find ways to make PwManager more secure. It's a wonderful
> app and I just want to see it improve.

I want to see PwManager more secure, too.
But I think there is one point we can't make more secure. => the user.
All what we try to do here is to protect the user from himself.
Imagine: What if we actually have implemented the hardware dependent
file-format, a mouse and keylogger secure entering mechanism? What
about a virus grepping through the memory image of PwManager? (/proc/PID)

I think this is the same issue I discussed some time ago with George
Staikos about KWallet. I complained that every application is able
to be man-in-the-middle in the security critical KWallet DCOP data stream
(and I fact that _is_ what PwManager does do emulate KWallet *g*. So
consider PwManager as some kind of exploit. ;) )
So he replied, that an application that wants to do Bad Things (tm)
needs to run as the same user, as PwManager runs. And that's exactly
protecting the user against himself.

> Ian

- --
Regards Michael Buesch  [ http://www.tuxsoft.de.vu ]

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