JavaScript-RGB-Password

Security and privacy

password entry verification

SHOW HN2012

95points
62comments
#230of 1,677 in 2012
Top 14%of 2012 by points

How HN took it

CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments

2 positive, 19 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 12 critical, out of 36 comments about the project. Thread score -0.26.

Privacy: 0 for, 7 againstIdea: 2 for, 3 againstDesign: 0 for, 2 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Useful idea for catching typos in password fields

    From 2 comments
    • Between stupid complexity requirements and "you can't repeat that password", I end up with "password" on one site, "Password1" on another, and "Password1!" on yet another.…
      mkopinsky on HN
    • I think a better usage would be to show two patterns - one of the password being entered and another for the password on file. Salt the passwords obviously before generating a…
      huhtenberg on HN

Objections

  • Colors leak information per keystroke, enabling brute force by shoulder surfing or video

    From 3 comments
    • Nice. Note, though, that accurately capturing the colors will let a bad guy brute-force the password one character at a time, which is trivial. Don't use this if you're worried…
      JoachimSchipper on HN
    • Assuming I record the colours generated when each character is entered, then I have a hash of just the first character. Cracking that is trivial. Then I can go and crack the…
      CJefferson on HN
    • That reduces the problem to brute-forcing the first four characters...
      JoachimSchipper on HN
  • Reduces security and is not useful; client-side code cannot be rate limited

    From 2 comments
    • This is cool, but ultimately worthless- even detrimental to security. The only problem this could possibly solve is that user has to wait for a reload before trying their…
      ebzlo on HN
    • And importantly, you can't rate limit client site JS like you can server-side with captchas etc.
      skattyadz on HN
  • Color-blind users may not distinguish colors

    From 2 comments
    • Why not do this with hieroglyphs instead of colours? I have deuteranomaly and colours don't work for me. I remember reading %10 of male population has some kind of colour…
      LaaT on HN
    • Deficiency doesn't mean that he sees colours diminished in hue value, but exactly that he wouldn't be able to distinguish between some colours.
      mrleinad on HN
  • Showing a password hash pattern to others would leak information

    From 1 comment
    • The idea is nice but in theory but that would be a _huge_ security risk. You'd be providing anyone you know with your encrypted password, as well as the encryption method.
      stanmancan on HN

Requests

  • Delay display until typing stops

    From 3 comments
    • Perhaps adding a short delay (under a second) after the last keystroke before refreshing the image would make this much more secure.
      rodh on HN
    • I think a better solution would be to only show the colour hash after there hasn't been a keypress in a few seconds. This would likely be a pretty good way of making sure you…
      burgerbrain on HN
    • You could delay the display of the color pattern until the user has stopped keying for a second or so. That way, the shoulder surfer would not get incremental versions to work…
      cynwoody on HN
  • Use shapes or characters instead of colors

    From 2 comments
    • Why not do this with hieroglyphs instead of colours? I have deuteranomaly and colours don't work for me. I remember reading %10 of male population has some kind of colour…
      LaaT on HN
    • That's a nicer idea. Or to generate some kind of character / robot.
      skattyadz on HN
  • Add a show password toggle instead

    From 2 comments
    • Of course, my preferred solution to this problem is to allow the user to toggle the password field, so that they can view the unobscured text if they wish.
      jawns on HN
    • Wouldn't having a "show password" option be a lot better?
      astrodust on HN

Questions

  • What problem does this solve?

    From 1 comment
    • I don't understand what problem this solves. Can anyone explain?
      sambeau on HN

Alternatives named

  • Chroma-Hash

    From 1 comment
    • This has been done before: http://mattt.github.com/Chroma-Hash/ Just make sure that the color thing is not reversible.
      mping on HN
  • Arc90 HashMask

    From 2 comments
    • Arc90 Labs had a similar thing around the same time too: http://lab.arc90.com/2009/07/09/hashmask-another-more-secure-experiment-in-password-masking/
      palmr on HN
    • With more spark line: http://lab.arc90.com/2009/07/09/hashmask-another-more-secure-experiment-in-password-masking/
      Maci on HN
  • Lotus Notes image password dialog

    From 1 comment
    • Lotus Notes has been doing this for years with a series of images instead of colours. It's an interesting idea but I think it's more confusing than helpful.
      charliesome on HN
  • Mozilla visual hashing

    From 1 comment
    • Mozilla worked too on visual hashing: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Identity/Watchdog/Visual_Hashing Chrome extension:…
      steren on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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