The issue is Chrome does not have a master password to protect those that are stored on a per-site basis. If someone has access to my machine, they can view my saved passwords with 5 clicks. Google argues having a masterpassword gives a false sense of security. It is trivial to bypass such a set-up by fabricating local webpages to request the stored passwords. While this is true, it betrays a lack of understanding of how users make use of software in the real world. I might happily give a co-worker access to my logged in machine while I make a cup of tea. I can reasonably expect them not to have prepared a series of dummy web pages to uncover my stored passwords, but with Chrome it only takes a couple of clicks to see in plain text my stored passwords. I appreciate Google are trying to teach me that passwords should be kept securely, and that limited securely is theoretically no better than no security, but in practice, a little more security would be beneficial.
And to Roger's question, yes, I use Chrome. I do get it to remember passwords to non-important sites, and I don't re-use those passwords on important sites. Even so, it is a nuisance. I don't especially want people to, for example, view the Groupon vouchers I have purchased, yet that is a site I have a saved password for. Regards, Michael Skeggs On 30 August 2013 23:07, Jeremy Visser <[email protected]> wrote: > On 30/08/13 16:45, Roger Clarke wrote: > > I thought Google employed *clever* people. > > > > Users of the popular web browser Google Chrome are warned that > > passwords (saved by the browser) are not secured properly, leading to > > any other user being able to view all passwords that you have saved. > > This is not news. It’s a *feature*, not a bug. > > Firefox has been doing this since forever as well, c.f. > http://i.imgur.com/gTsiB5i.png > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
