280534 - password dialogs should optionally not show anything

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Manuel Schiller]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux ppc; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20050125 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Thunderbird version 1.0 (20050124) (local build ppc linux is not that common)

I think that the password dialogs ought to have an option in the preferences
panel that stops them from displaying "*" for each character you type. I think
so for security reasons (sometimes the length of a password is valuable
information for an attacker). Having used *nix-like platforms for ages, I have a
bad feeling about this.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Do anything that prompts for a password (i.e. use enigmail)
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
Password dialog shows '*' for each character typed

Expected Results:  
It should have an option to disable printing anything in the textfield where the
password is typed.

Should probably be fixed in other applications, too (firefox, mozilla etc...)

Comment 1

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.