Re: Securing Password Inputs

In general you are right, however the security minded people are absent in application programming. Are these the same people who developed HTTP Auth:BASIC?

What we're talking about here isn't JS validation or parameter sanitation, it is merely that whatever password inputs you get will be pre-hashed. It is opaque to the server and application for the most part. The only issue are services that supply a new password during password reset. In these situations, a reset link is even easier, or the application can be modified to accept the double-hashed version of the password.


Currently, these passwords are sent in plain text and stored in plain text or unsalted hash. 


________________________________
 From: Seth Call <sethcall@gmail.com>
To: Jason H <scorp1us@yahoo.com> 
Cc: Cameron Jones <cmhjones@gmail.com>; Arthur Clifford <art@artspad.net>; "public-html-comments@w3.org" <public-html-comments@w3.org> 
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2012 11:02 AM
Subject: Re: Securing Password Inputs
 

There is no such thing as moving security to the browser, because it is a client-side application.  If you disagree, OK,  go right ahead... but  this is a server-side mindset and I'd assert you will never, ever win that argument with security-minded folks.

If you want to make it easy to implement server-side code, then by all means contribute to bcrypt (or other good password encryption technology), or language/framework adoption of it.

But in the context of HTML5 and browsers, I can only recommend:

Make end users aware of the importance of passwords. This is the basis of my suggestion, earlier in the thread, on making a standardized way to give users feedback on the strength of their password.

On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 9:49 AM, Jason H <scorp1us@yahoo.com> wrote:

They might be cagey, but they are completely absent in implementation in the storage routines of user credentials for most sites.
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>Moving security to the browser is much easier because there are less browsers than applications.
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> From: Cameron Jones <cmhjones@gmail.com>
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>> The problem with specifying how to encrypt things in a public specification
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>> is that everybody knows how it is done, and therefore all you are doing is
>> resetting the timer for hackers to figure things out. There should be
>> something provided by servers that the server knows and trusts.
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>Exactly. There is a reason why security folks are cagey.
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