Re: Objection to password role

We are still discussing the issue because the same people keep bringing up what has already been discussed. This is what happened with longdesc. I don’t want to rehash old issues that have been addressed. 

Marco’s tweet has no substance that anyone can action on. 

What I am becoming increasingly concerned about is that no matter how much this group invests in addressing the issues that the same group of people will just throw in another roadblock to try to not see it in even if there is not additional information provided. We are trying to work with you John but that will not fly here. Mozilla is a member of this working group and they have had more than ample opportunity to come to this group and raise technical concerns. This has been discussed for once. 

I made a suggestion about the mapping to indicate that it was a custom password. I would like to hear a response. That is equivalent to exposing a different role so the user knows it is not a standard HTML password which I add again is not entirely secure.  The fact that it claims to be secure is a fallacy as Jason indicates. Perhaps I should raise a formal objection to HTML 5.1 as password is still not totally secure in browsers. I could add that there should be HTML 5.1 text that says that browsers, like Firefox, should not expose a mean for a user to get access to the value. One thing the custom password field has is that it is not as easily retrieved. 

Rich

> On Jun 21, 2016, at 3:49 PM, John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Jason,
> 
> > a screen reader user can distinguish <input type=”password”> by how the assistive technology handles it
> 
> Actually, it was Joanie who indicated the difference in behavior, not I. My concern is as much around human behavior, and learned assumptions over time. 
> 
> > to the extent that they make these assumptions now, [users] will have to learn not to make them.
> 
> Problem statement right there.
> 
> Jason, while I respect that this may not seem to be a serious issue to you, and how you use the web today, I will also note in passing that there is an increasingly long list of known daily screen reader users who are all chiming in with their concerns over this as well. (Here's one: https://twitter.com/MarcoInEnglish/status/743680877444497408 <https://twitter.com/MarcoInEnglish/status/743680877444497408>)
> 
> I asked for, and got, strong warning language around the use of this role value, and I accept the use-cases that have been brought forward in support of this role value (despite the fact we've *still* not seen an actual example of one) and I will not impede progress of the ARIA spec over this. 
> 
> None-the-less, the fact that we are still discussing this issue, and that others are now starting to also express concerns, tells me that there still may be some work to be done here - and that is an observational statement and nothing more.
> 
> JF
> 
> On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 2:10 PM, White, Jason J <jjwhite@ets.org <mailto:jjwhite@ets.org>> wrote:
>  
> 
>   <>
> From: John Foliot [mailto:john.foliot@deque.com <mailto:john.foliot@deque.com>] 
> Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2016 2:34 PM
> 
> 
> The problem with "password" is that for over 20+ years of the internet, the idea of a password field has earned some presumed security and privacy features that you often don't think about - certainly not actively. For example, if you type a character string into an input type="password", you cannot then highlight and copy what is rendered on screen, and paste it into a text editor to see the string - it will copy and paste as "stars". That's just one example, there are others (for example "...browsers are likely to save the value for autocomplete  unless they explicitly recognise the role as defining a real password  field.” - Chaals McCathieNevile (Yandex) - https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-aria/2016Apr/0054.html <https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-aria/2016Apr/0054.html>.) 
> 
>  
> 
> [Jason] So the argument is supposed to be that a screen reader user can distinguish <input type=”password”> by how the assistive technology handles it, from custom password widgets, thus having an advantage that the non-AT user lacks. Then we’re supposed to believe that such screen reader users go on to make certain assumptions that may or may not hold. I appreciate John’s setting out this position. I don’t find it convincing since I think such users, to the extent that they make these assumptions now, will have to learn not to make them.
> 
>  
> 
> The situation is no different from that of a password field in a desktop or mobile application, which for all the user knows could be a widget provided by the platform or a custom widget supplied by the application that behaves in subtly different ways. Thus the ARIA proposal simply brings the Web use case into line with desktop and mobile applications (where, to the best of my knowledge, it’s possible to write a custom password widget and to make it accessible to screen reader users by declaring it in the accessibility API).
> 
>  
> 
> If it’s a choice between this group’s declining to make custom password widgets accessible, and not alerting the user to the possibility that the application author may have violated certain assumptions, then my vote is strongly in support of making the custom fields accessible – and more secure by suppressing keyboard echo. That is, while I think John has well articulated an objection, I’m not persuaded that it’s a good case for changing this group’s position regarding the password role, namely, that it should be included in ARIA.
> 
>  
> 
> Note also that the very act of deciding to enter sensitive information into a field requires a certain elvel of trust in the security of the application. If I knew I were confronted with a custom widget rather than an <input type=password” would I have an additional, substantial reason not to enter sensitive password text into it? My answer is: “probably not”, or at best, “not much”. The decision would be dominated by my other reasons to entrust (or not to entrust) the application with sensitive information. I don’t think knowing whether a password field is custom or not is significantly going to affect anybody’s decision about whether to enter password text into it; and that’s the important choice to be made by the user in this context.
> 
>  
> 
> 
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> -- 
> John Foliot
> Principal Accessibility Strategist
> Deque Systems Inc.
> john.foliot@deque.com <mailto:john.foliot@deque.com>
> 
> Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion