From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/72191 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Ted Zlatanov Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: Password protection Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:15:37 -0500 Organization: =?utf-8?B?0KLQtdC+0LTQvtGAINCX0LvQsNGC0LDQvdC+0LI=?= @ Cienfuegos Message-ID: <87fwwszd1i.fsf@lifelogs.com> References: <87sk0t3oxm.fsf@lifelogs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1285780572 7919 80.91.229.12 (29 Sep 2010 17:16:12 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:16:12 +0000 (UTC) To: ding@gnus.org Original-X-From: ding-owner+M20564@lists.math.uh.edu Wed Sep 29 19:16:11 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: ding-account@gmane.org Original-Received: from util0.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.18]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1P10GI-0003C5-On for ding-account@gmane.org; Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:16:11 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.math.uh.edu) by util0.math.uh.edu with smtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1P10G5-0003Lw-UI; Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:15:57 -0500 Original-Received: from mx2.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.33]) by util0.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1P10G4-0003Li-4g for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:15:56 -0500 Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.231.51]) by mx2.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1P10Fz-0006EZ-BF for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:15:55 -0500 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 1P10Fy-0004Le-00 for ; Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:15:50 +0200 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1P10Fv-00034w-Tr for ding@gnus.org; Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:15:47 +0200 Original-Received: from 38.98.147.130 ([38.98.147.130]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:15:47 +0200 Original-Received: from tzz by 38.98.147.130 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:15:47 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 35 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 38.98.147.130 X-Face: bd.DQ~'29fIs`T_%O%C\g%6jW)yi[zuz6;d4V0`@y-~$#3P_Ng{@m+e4o<4P'#(_GJQ%TT= D}[Ep*b!\e,fBZ'j_+#"Ps?s2!4H2-Y"sx" User-Agent: Gnus/5.110011 (No Gnus v0.11) Emacs/24.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:H7eAF3TVAPonL9e8udpM+8YmkTU= X-Spam-Score: -0.7 (/) List-ID: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:72191 Archived-At: On Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:07:03 +0200 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote: LMI> Ted Zlatanov writes: >> Look at it the other way: why shouldn't they set up a GPG agent or enter >> a passphrase? (assuming that entering the passphrase more than once is >> a bug I plan to fix) LMI> Entering a pass phrase (once) is fine if they've chosen to set things up LMI> like that. Firefox also allows the passwords to be, er, LMI> password-protected. :-) Right. So the usability issues are the same. LMI> But setting up a GPG agent is way too much for a normal user. I think. I really don't think you can get reasonable security without a passphrase entry at some point. The GPG agent is securely written to do this. The Secrets API (about which I wrote some proposals you skipped) is also much more secure than Emacs can be and makes it unnecessary to enter any passphrases, being keyed to your user login. >> So I'd argue that Emacs has, practically speaking, better security >> *externally* than Firefox, Chrome, or most other web browsers with a >> authinfo.gpg file. Now from the inside, yes, it's a candy store of >> passwords, and that's a concern. But Doing It Right requires a lot of >> infrastructure that Emacs Lisp doesn't have. And Firefox and Chrome >> extensions can get at your passwords too AFAIK. LMI> Yeah. A `process-send-password' function makes the candy somewhat less LMI> tasty, I think... As I said, the Secrets API implements exactly this and is available through auth-source.el without any C code required. What doesn't it do? Ted