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I don't see how showing each letter individually is more secure than showing the whole password in the clear. Anyone looking at your screen is still going to se
by lonestar 17y ago
I don't see how showing each letter individually is more secure than showing the whole password in the clear. Anyone looking at your screen is still going to see every character in your password.
The only reason this approach makes sense on mobile phones is that you can easily prevent others from seeing your screen. But if I'm logging in to a site on a projector in front of a bunch of co-workers, I don't want my password displayed to them. Not even one character at a time.
- modoc 17y agoNot great for projectors, but pretty good for your average use. If I'm typing my password in, my main concern is someone walking by glancing over and seeing my whole password. This is a good balance between security and ease of use. I rarely mistype my passwords, but my less technical mother does frequently. Showing her the char she hit would be very helpful. It's a good compromise.
- silencio 17y agoOn a random sidenote, I remember being at WWDC last year where someone on stage was trying to demo an iPhone app that needed a login...except the login was an Apple ID and well, the password was going to be shown one character at a time to the whole audience. That was a bit of a problem :) While clearly there needs to be something like that for the iPhone and odds of someone figuring out your password shoulder surfing very slim in most cases regardless, I can't see a downside to there being an 'unmask password' option on non-mobile devices for users who hate that all the passwords are masked (like mentioned above).