5 ms·

This is such a good decision. It's one of those things that's incredibly confusing initially, but you get so used to it over the years, I even forgot it was a q

• Freak_NL 7mo ago
  Yes… We're in the same room as the target… Let's look at their screen and see how long their password is. Or, we could just look at the keyboard as they type and gain a lot more information. In an absolute sense not showing anything is safer. But it never really matters and just acts as a paper cut for all.
  • darkwater 7mo ago
    And just sticking to counting, a not exceptionally well-trained ear could already count how many letters you typed and if you pressed backspace (at least with the double-width backspace, sound is definitely different)
    • elcritch 7mo ago
      Yeah I recall that there was an attack researchers demonstrated years back of using recordings of typing with an AI model to predict the typed text with some accuracy. Something to do with the timings of letter pairings, among other things.
      • vova_hn2 7mo ago
        93% - 95% accuracy and it wasn't even a good quality recording > When trained on keystrokes recorded by a nearby phone, the classifier achieved an accuracy of 95%, the highest accuracy seen without the use of a language model. When trained on keystrokes recorded using the video-conferencing software Zoom, an accuracy of 93% was achieved, a new best for the medium. https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.01074 https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.01074
        • 3eb7988a1663 7mo ago
          Notably, I believe this has to be tuned to each specific environment. The acoustics of your keyboard are going to be different from mine. Which is not much of a barrier, given a long enough session where you can presumably record them typing non password-y things.
  • SapporoChris 7mo ago
    "Let's look at their screen and see how long their password is." This article is about silent sudo. Have you ever watched a fast touch typist, someone that does over 100 words per minute? Someone who might be using an keyboard layout that you're not familiar with? When the full password is entered in less than a second it can be very difficult to discern what they typed unless you're actually recording with video. But sure, if you're watching someone who types with one finger. Yes, I can see that.
    • Freak_NL 7mo ago
      How is learning only the length of the password better than watching someone type it? Besides, observe that several times and you might get close. Look at the stars several times and learn nothing beyond what you learned the first time. This whole type of attack hinges on the user using weak passwords with predictable elements in any case.
• ahofmann 7mo ago
  I also think it is a good decision. Nevertheless it breaks the workflow of at least one person. My father's Linux password is one character. I didn't knew this when I supported him over screen sharing methods, because I couldn't see it. He told me, so now I know. But the silent prompt protected that fact. It is still a good decision, an one character password is useless from a security standpoint.
  • zx8080 7mo ago
    > It is still a good decision, an one character password is useless from a security standpoint. Only if length is known. Which is true now. So it opens the gates to try passwords of specific known length.
    • ludston 7mo ago
      If you are brute forcing passwords, knowing the length only reduces the number of passwords to try by like 1 hundredth.
      • egeres 7mo ago
        It also give you the possibility of filtering out which ones are worth cracking and which ones not
        • elcritch 7mo ago
          It could also give useful priors for targeted attacks, "Their password is 5 characters, and their daughters name is also 5 characters, let's try variations of that".
          • justsomehnguy 7mo ago
            Some system accessible to hackers who can see the length of the password /and/ having a single 5 char password has a security of a key under a doormat.
          • 7mo ago
• MattPalmer1086 7mo ago
  I tend to agree, and I work in security. In the early days we all shared computers. People would often stand behind you waiting to use it. It might even not have a screen, just a teletype, so there would be a hard copy of everything you entered. We probably didn't have account lockout controls either. Knowing the length of a password (which did not tend to be long) could be a critical bit of info to reduce a brute force attack. Nowadays, not so much I think. And if you are paranoid about it, you can still set it back to the silent behaviour.
  • tester756 7mo ago
    On the other hand streaming is way, way more common nowadays.
• wpollock 7mo ago
  > In the modern world there is no plausible scenario where this would compromise a password that wouldn't otherwise also be compromised with equivalent effort. Not sure about that. I'm no expert but for high risk scenarios one might have to worry about binoculars from the building opposite your window, power line monitoring, and timing attacks. All scenarios where the attacker cannot see your hands/keyboard.
• Ferret7446 6mo ago
  Typed passwords can be reliably determined only through timing, so exposing the timing of the input can be exploited. e.g. screen sharing, or anyone who can see your screen