full-disclosure - Re: Filezilla's silent caching of user's credentials

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Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:49:39 -0400
From: Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu
To: Christian Sciberras <uuf6429@...il.com>
Cc: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk, Mutiny <mutiny@...inbeardsucks.com>
Subject: Re: Filezilla's silent caching of user's
	credentials

On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:20:30 +0200, Christian Sciberras said:
> And that is my point exactly. While I'm shouting out loud, let me ask a question:
> How many FD readers are dumb enough to share their harddisks with the world?
> None? So what is the problem in using FileZilla personally? I mean, anyone which
> takes security seriously, would be encrypting their drive in the first
> place.

The problem is that "FD readers" and "anyone who takes security seriously" are
vanishingly small corners of the total Internet population.  Yes, there may be
5,000 race car drivers in the US who can do amazing drifts and the like if a
car isn't equipped with anti-lock brakes.  That doesn't mean that they aren't a
better choice for the other 200 million drivers in the US.  Similarly, the fact
that a security feature isn't strictly needed on the 0.2% of systems that are
properly administered doesn't mean that the programmer shouldn't be thinking
about the other 99.8% of users where the feature will add incremental benefit.

Think: Why does SSH use a passphrase to protect your private key by default,
and why does it allow the *optional* omission of said passphrase? Why shouldn't
the exact same reasoning apply to all other software that stores credentials?

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