Re: [Gaim-devel] Password Obfuscation/Encryption in .gaimrc

[Luke S. <lsc...@gm...>]

On Thu, Oct 10, 2002 at 03:44:31PM -0700, Michael Lasevich wrote:
> I've just read the discussion about password encryption (libyahoo2
> integration thread) and I must say that I find the attitude of the
> developers on this subject a bit silly.
> 
> What is being asked is a bit of obfuscation , not perfect bulletproof
> encryption. A dedicated person can always get around any encryption scheme
> there is. If someone has physical access to my linux box they can have
> root-level permissions in minutes - that does not mean I leave my root
> password on a post it note glued to my monitor. Just because someone can
> easily find means of decoding the passwords, does not mean they should be
> available in plain view to anyone who happens to glance at the rc file.
> 
> Besides, noone in the discussion mentioned the obvious solution of having
> all passwords encrypted by a single password you have to type in at start
> time. This will eliminate every reason given against encryption in the
> thread.

because if we did that we'd have to take care of 2 side effect cases:
1)alot of people will not want to remember any password for their im.
this means the encryption must be optional. 
2)people who enable it then want to disable it. along these lines, people
who forget the passphrase. this makes doing it less trivial. 

> 
> All that being said, I am not writing to start another flame war here. I
> respect the developers descision even if I do not agree. It is their
> decision to make. But this is an open source project and I was just
> wondering that since it was mentioned that many people submitted patches to
> solve this issue, can I get some pointers to those patches? I am not a real

i've never seen a patch. only requests. and some demands. 

luke

> programmer and thus make it a rule not to edit software unless I absolutely
> have to - I'd rather not have to mess with gaim source code. Has someone on
> this list written/have such a patch they can send me?
> 
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> -Michael
> 
> 
> 
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