Fwd: about accounts file

[Ethan Blanton]

Tres Finocchiaro spake unto us the following wisdom:
> I've never much understood Pidgins perspective on this.  Even base64 is
> obscure enough to keep a human from reading it over the shoulder.

Unless your password is very, very bad, a base64 encoding of the
password should be of roughly similar complexity.  Therefore, anyone
who can remember your password can remember the base64 -- and reverse
it.

> The Unix argument seems to be pragmatic and naive in an Active Directory
> dominated industry.  I for one agree with the OP, clear text is frightening
> to see, regardless of the technicalities around how secure it is.

Good.  It should be frightening.  That's the point.

Ethan