Re: You're on SecurityFocus.com for the cleartext passwords.

[Tom Lane]

| If you don't trust your dbadmin, the security of your password is
| the least of your worries --- the data in your database may well
| be far more critical info than anything the dbadmin could find in
| your personal account.

It may, and then again, it may not. There are lots of databases out
there that do not contain secret or critical data. All databases I
have made fall into this category. But the password I use on my
PostgreSQL account is (or used to be, until I discovered the cleartext
passwords) the same password I use most other places. I don't care if
anyone reads the data, as long as they don't start testing my password
on all other sites they may guess I have access to. I have my
PostgreSQL database on an ISP on the other side of the globe. Why
should I trust those people more than, say, my neighbour?

| The main potential hazard I see is portability. Is crypt(3) available
| on *all* the platforms Postgres runs on? Does it give the same answers
| on all those platforms? If not, what shall we use instead?

I implemented MD5 in Java a couple of years ago. I'm sure me or
someone else will be able to convert it to C. I'll make the license
anything you want it to be if you care to use it.

| There are also lesser worries about patents and US export regulations.
| If we include an encryption package in the distribution we could
| eliminate the portability problem, only to find ourselves facing
| headaches in those departments :-(

AFAIK, MD5 is not restricted, as it can't be used for
encryption/decryption. It is a one way hashing function only. Please
correct me if I am wrong, I never understood those stupid export
regulations anyway.

Sverre - who really do not want _anyone_ to know his passwords.

--
<URL:mailto:sverrehu(at)online(dot)no>
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