[cap-talk] Why petnames should not be used for password hashes.

[M. Scott Doerrie]

David Hopwood wrote:

> M. Scott Doerrie wrote:
>
>> Karp, Alan H wrote:
>>
>>> Do you mean http sites?  That's very dangerous since there's no way to
>>> verify who you're really talking to.  PwdHsh uses part of the URL for
>>> https sites, but I don't see how you can change a password without
>>> ending up with a different one for each site.
>>>
>> That's exactly the case that petnames can't handle: when I would like 
>> to authenticate myself, without authenticating the entity I'm 
>> communicating with.  In many cases, such as being at a public 
>> terminal reading news or blogs from sites that "need" a password.
>
>
> The vast majority of such sites should not be using passwords.
> I have a high-security login, a low-security login, and a "why the hell
> does this need a password at all?" login. The latter is username 
> "dhopwood",
> password "foobar", and you're free to use it.
>
Agreed.  I recognize that I am having a discussion about how to patch a 
broken authentication system (generic passwords) when the tools to build 
a better one already exist, but are not widely in use.

Scott Doerrie