Re: [HACKERS] Updated TODO list

On Thu, 15 Jul 1999, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> > 1) Divide and conquer: the developers are concerned about both "over the
> > wire" and server passwords. I suggest you focus on the server side and
> > leave the over the wire security to the DB admin/sys.admin as an
> > installation issue. If they choose to use SSL, SSH, IPsec or a home-grown
> > authentication handshake, that's of no concern to pgsql. Just think of it
> > as a telnet session into the server.
> > 
> > 2) On the server side, use the native crypt(3) by default (or the NT
> > equivalent) and store the password hash. The strength of the crypt will
> > vary depending on the installation, but that's really up to the choice of
> > OS and installation. If someone wants to patch for PAM, Kerberos or
> > whatever, that's fine too, as long as you can always revert back to the
> > plain old crypt(3).
> > 
> 
> I disagree.  Over the wire seems more important than protecting the
> passwords from the eyes of the database administrator, which in _most_
> cases is the system owner anyway.

And when it's not?  People have a tendency to use passwords in more than
one place so they won't forget what they used (they can keep it narrowed
down to a couple passwords).  Why would you want to make it visible to
anyone?  

Vince.
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