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Re: security policy / root passwords



On 10/06/13 15:36, Timo Juhani Lindfors wrote:
> Simon McVittie <smcv@debian.org> writes:
>>     * ability to use system-modal prompting or a secure input path
>>       (partially done by PK under GNOME Shell, likely to get better
>>       under Wayland, not supported by sudo or su)
> 
> Not relevant to the current discussion but this got me curious: can the
> input path really be secure under X11?

It can at least be a bit more robust against accidentally typing your
password into the wrong window (although perhaps not secure against
deliberate abuse by a malicious application) by taking an input grab,
like the various pinentry-* and ssh-askpass implementations do.

I'm not sure how far GNOME Shell goes with securing input to
system-modal dialogs, but again, the fact that it's modal makes it a bit
more robust against mistakes.

    S


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