Re: PostgreSQL cleartext passwords

Lincoln Yeoh <lylyeoh(at)mecomb(dot)com> writes:
>>> But if someone sniffs the crypted form, won't they be able to reuse it?
>>
>> Not unless they're lucky enough to be challenged with the same random
>> "salt" value that was used in the login transaction they sniffed.

> Well then it's a max of 4096 tries? Assuming a normal crypt size salt.

Right, it's not real strong with standard crypt :-(

However, you must agree that that is the fault of the crypt engine
and not of the protocol. The plan that was being discussed on pghackers
was to replace crypt with an MD5 crypto-hash algorithm and widen the
random salt sufficiently that pure luck wouldn't let an attacker see
the same salt twice. See the archives if you want to pursue this;
I really don't care to repeat the discussion-so-far...

regards, tom lane