Re: Postgresql -- initial impressions and comments

On Tue, 2002-12-03 at 23:50, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Scott Lamb wrote:

> > That's disconcerting to me because I think it defeats the point of
> > sending MD5 signatures on the wire - avoiding replay attacks. If it's
> > stored in MD5 format on the server, it can't request it with a different
> > salt every time (how would it compare them?), so you can just replay the
> > MD5 transmission.
> >
> > The other way, though, a compromise of the database would mean a
> > compromise of all the passwords.
> >
> > So it definitely would be helpful to have an answer to your question in
> > with the description of the authentication types, so you could choose
> > intelligently based on what you consider to be more likely risks.
>
> 7.3 stores encrypted MD5 passowords in database (7.2 it is optional).
> We send random salt to client and client double-MD5 encrypts, so
> playback will not work --- best of both worlds.

So, if I understand it correctly :

- on the wire : no cleartext passwords, only doubly hashed + salted
passwords -> no replay possible (watch out for session hijacking though)
nor password sniffing

- in the database : no cleartext passwords are stored, but access to the
md5 hashed passwords is sufficient to get access to the database -
without really knowing the user's password - by using a modified client.

Is this correct ?

cheers
Tycho