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I wonder if it'll stick though? Some years ago FreeBSD changed their setup so the initial password you set on install was echoed back to you so you could verify that the thing that'll completely lock you out of the system if you get it wrong is correctly set up. The response was total hysteria. Apparently people were setting up their 1U rack-mount servers while riding the No.8 bus and were worried other passengers were looking over their shoulders while they typed in the password. So they backed out of the change after being buried in a mountain of complaints.

One thing people are really, really good at is detecting others near them, because it was essential for not getting eaten back in the day. So the chances of (a) someone wanting to shoulder-surf (b) being close enough to do so and (c) getting away with it are essentially zero. It was a security measure that made sense in 1973 when you were on a model 33 leaving a printed record in a machine room with a dozen other people, but has been completely nonsensical for several decades.

Which is probably why it invokes so much irrational religious fervor.



Did that echo the password back on the screen or just asterisks?


The password, otherwise you have no way to check you've got it right.

Oh yeah, I can see why some might freak out about that.

Me too, in the sense that I can see why people freak out about spiders, but it's difficult to come up with any realistic scenario where you need to be worried about a random attacker standing behind you looking over your shoulder to write down your password as you install a server.



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