[Design] On encrypting passwords

[Mimi Yin]

Hi Heikki,

How does this relate to OS keychains? How do Outlook, Apple Mail and  
Thunderbird encrypt your passwords? or do they?

Mimi


On Feb 20, 2007, at 3:33 PM, Heikki Toivonen wrote:

> Chandler has the ability to remember passwords, and many high profile
> programs (e.g. Firefox) that have this ability can encrypt these  
> passwords.
>
> Doing encryption/decryption like this traditionally requires the  
> user to
> set a master password. The master password is never stored on disk, it
> will be asked from the user on demand, and may be remembered in memory
> until program shutdown or timeout.
>
> I think we need to provide some level of encryption support in Preview
> timeframe. For example, I think our users should be able to submit  
> their
> repositories to us for debugging purposes without us learning their
> passwords.
>
> Do we want to default to requiring a master password to encrypt and
> decrypt the other passwords?
>
> Or do we start unencrypted, offer a "encrypt" checkbox in the accounts
> dialog, and also when making a repository backup/dump? (I think I am
> slightly in favor of this.)
>
> Do we want to provide encrypting arbitrary items/attributes? (I  
> wouldn't
> worry about this until after Preview.)
>
> Do we want to protect the passwords in memory? I must point out that
> this would be quite a bit of work, and it is not certain we could even
> cover all cases (passing password strings into libraries we may not  
> have
> control over, for example). This would involve things like: clear out
> master password on timeout, never store the other passwords in clear
> text except for the moment when they are needed, zero out the actual
> bits in memory once done, prevent password memory from being swapped
> out, etc. (I wouldn't worry about passwords in memory myself.)
>
> Please note that Chandler already supports encrypting the entire
> repository. An alternative on some operating systems is to ask the  
> OS to
> encrypt the disk/directory where the repository is.
>
> Another thing to note is that many OSes provide password safes of  
> their
> own with naturally platform specific APIs. I am not suggesting we  
> try to
> hook up with these in Preview timeframe.
>
> Reply-to set to design.
>
> -- 
>   Heikki Toivonen
>
>
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