Bug#884788: systemd-ask-password echos password as stars (*) while decrypting LUKS partition

[root kea]

On Wed, Dec 20, 2017 at 4:46 AM, Michael Biebl <biebl at debian.org> wrote:

> I think this is intentional behaviour, so you'll easily spot that your
> input system works

The current implementation is that the password gets echoed to
terminal as star(*) characters by default and one needs to press TAB
or BACKSPACE key to turn off the echo.

Now it's quite possible that there are people who want to make sure
that their input works while entering password. For them a key should
be configured (e.g. TAB or BACKSPACE) to echo the stars(*). By default
password shouldn't be echoed at all. Something like when most of the
modern GUIs make you click on button to reveal the password. By
default they print stars/dots.[0] (This is an analogy)

There are mainly 2 reasons behind this proposal:
1. Security by obscurity (hiding the length of pass-phrase)
2. consistency

Now, still if we decide to make `systemd-ask-password` echo stars on
screen by default (which IMHO is a very bad idea) we should, just for
the sake of consistency, file bug reports against sudo, cryptsetup,
login and all those debian packages which don't echo the passphrase as
stars/any obscure char by default.

> Basically any graphical user interface works like
> this these days.

No, that is incorrect. First of all `systemd-ask-password` asking a
password to decrypt a partition is not a GUI. It's a CLI. Just like
cryptsetup. And secondly, this is a wrong analogy. A correct analogy
would be GUI -> CLI :: echoing dots by default -> echoing nothing by
default :: revealing password on a user action -> echoing stars on a
user action

[0] https://imgur.com/a/31oWd
-- 
Avinash Sonawane (rootKea)
PICT, Pune
https://rootkea.wordpress.com