In message <199904191510.LAA03916at_private>, Phillip Vandry writes: >> First, plain text passwords are being used is places where they need not >> be. For example the recent post about the Real Media server storing >> plain text passwords. There is no reason for the server to store >> plain text passwords. It can store a hash and authenticate users >> against the hash. > >It's the old PAP versus CHAP debate. *YES*, there is reason for the >realmedia server to store the password in plaintext (although it >should still obfuscate it to prevent accidental viewing). I always >like to compare the types of PPP authentication to show this: > >Method Client Wire Server >------ --------- --------- --------- >PAP Clear Clear Encrypted >CHAP Clear Encrypted Clear > >And I don't think we can do better than that. We can encrypt at only one >stage of the process. We have to make a tradeoff. It's certainly possible to do better -- there's a whole family of protocols that do that. See, for example, /http://www.research.att.com/~smb/papers/aeke.ps (or .pdf), which gives encrypted on the wire and at the server. (The predecessor paper is http://www.research.att.com/~smb/papers/neke.ps) There are related protocols by others.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 13 2001 - 14:43:05 PDT