Hmm, IMO the point of gnome-keyring is to protect the
passwords/passphrases/encryption keys.  I wouldn't suggest allowing an
application to control whether the password is freely readable, no.

But the fact that network-manager has a password stored in gnome-keyring
is not sensitive information.  Only the password itself is.  So network-
manager should be able to query gnome-keyring to find out if there's a
passphrase there.  As it is now, network-manager queries for it, but in
order to find out, gnome-keyring must ask the user to unlock the key.
And once that's done, the keyring is readable, even though there's no
reason for it to be unlocked at all.  That is less secure, not more so.

Having network-manager store that information elsewhere is begging for
sync problems. What happens if network-manager stores a key in the
keyring, and then it's deleted from the keyring?  Answer: we're back to
where we are now, with network-manager causing gnome-keyring to prompt
the user and still not having the information it needs to work.  Or the
other way round, what happens if the passphrase is stored, but network-
manager loses the information that it's stored there?  Answer: network-
manager never tries to use gnome-keyring, so must ask the user for the
key every time.

-- 
nm-applet: requests keyring password, doesn't use it
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/125075
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