Re: Password Security

[Jirka Klimes <jklimes redhat com>]

On Wednesday 08 of June 2011 10:10:09 Timo Babst wrote:
> Hello, I am using NetworkManager Applet 0.8. It works great except for
> one very annoying thing : there is a checkbox that says "show password"
> and someone (luckily a friend) was able to copy my password just by
> using this little funny feature. Could'nt you make sure that the user
> has to be root in order to view the password? It IS very annoying, since
> this feature makes every password absolutely useless. Sorry to be so
> direct, but this really is a BIG issue for me (and I think it should not
> be too hard to change it for the guy who developped it).
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Timo Babst

As others said you should keep an eye on the computer when logged in.

But, if you really want to, you can hide the "Show password" checkbox easily.
Edit UI files in /usr/share/nm-applet and change 'visible' property for Show 
checkboxes to 'False'.

Examples for WEP and WPA-PSK passwords:

--- /usr/share/nm-applet/ws-wep-key.ui  2011-06-09 11:30:06.205972001 +0200
+++ a   2011-06-09 11:29:35.643972000 +0200
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@
             <child>
               <object class="GtkCheckButton" id="show_checkbutton_wep">
                 <property name="label" translatable="yes">Sho_w 
key</property>
-                <property name="visible">True</property>
+                <property name="visible">False</property>
                 <property name="can_focus">True</property>
                 <property name="receives_default">False</property>
                 <property name="use_underline">True</property>

--- /usr/share/nm-applet/ws-wpa-psk.ui  2011-06-09 11:30:29.037972027 +0200
+++ b   2011-06-09 11:29:47.469972001 +0200
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@
             <child>
               <object class="GtkCheckButton" id="show_checkbutton_wpa">
                 <property name="label" translatable="yes">Sho_w 
password</property>
-                <property name="visible">True</property>
+                <property name="visible">False</property>
                 <property name="can_focus">True</property>
                 <property name="receives_default">False</property>
                 <property name="use_underline">True</property>

You can do the same for other dialogs.
Hint: grep -r Sho /usr/share/nm-applet/

Jirka