3 ms·
I'm in on anything that prevents the "best practice" of entering new passwords that have esoteric standards of "strength", twice, BLIND, on a crap cellphone "ke
by bediger4000 3y ago
I'm in on anything that prevents the "best practice" of entering new passwords that have esoteric standards of "strength", twice, BLIND, on a crap cellphone "keyboard".
The dots/stars for "password" type input fields might have prevented shoulder surfing in the days of wide-field-of-vision CRT monitors, and typing passwords twice on a real keyboard might have helped decrease people typing something they didn't mean, but it's all irrelevant in the age of narrow field LED cellphones held close to the face, using much smaller fonts.
- sonicanatidae 3y agoThe dots are a legacy thing now. I agree 100%. Yes, they protect you from shoulder surfing, all twice in your life, where that may have been a factor. Otherwise, they are just an implement to the user, at this point.
- JohnFen 3y agoI agree entirely. Obscuring the text was largely pointless even before smart phones became common.
- hooverd 3y agoDecent websites will at least make it toggleable.
- Animats 3y agoThe dot thing is actually a holdover from the days of printing terminals, where, if something wasn't done to hide them, passwords would be on paper in a trash can.
- bediger4000 3y agoThem I'm glad Unix login programs just didn't print any password characters. But it shows how a best practice isn't appropriate for all circumstances, and that they outlive their usefulness.
- jclulow 3y agoIf you're going to drop secret masking, it at least needs to be optionally still available. Modern cameras can capture quite a lot od what's on today's bright, high contrast, high resolution, wide viewing angle screens from surprisingly far away. Unless we're going to use a dark cloth on our phones as if they were an old view camera, I think secret masking still serves a purpose on phones.