One Hundred Paper Cuts -- the first ten

[David Siegel]

Scott James Remnant wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-06-19 at 08:58 -0500, David Siegel wrote:
>
>   
>>>> Wifi auto-connection asks for keyring password
>>>>     https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/388593
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> This issue is pretty hard to get right, and thus I think it really
>>> disqualifies as a paper cut. I commented on the bug and subscribed
>>> Alex and Seb for further input. Your input from design POV heavily
>>> appreciated as well.
>>>
>>>       
>> I feared that this one in particular would be too difficult to fix 
>> completely, but what about ensuring that the password prompt has a "save 
>> password for future use" checkbox, so the password only has to be 
>> entered once per encrypted wifi network?
>>
>>     
> Ah, a misunderstanding.
>
> This is exactly what already happens, Network Manager saves the network
> passphrase for future use.
>
> The problem is that the keyring *into which* it saves that password is
> encrypted with your login password as a key.
>
> If you use auto-login, your *keyring* is not yet open.
>
> The passphrase you have to enter is not the network passphrase, it is
> your login password - needed to decrypt your keyring.
>
>
> Otherwise all the saved passwords and passphrases would be trivially
> readable :-(
>
> Scott
>   
Yes, I understand, sorry I wasn't thinking it through.

So what about Windows and Mac OS users who auto-login and are not 
required to unlock their keyrings before joining their wifi networks? 
Surely Mac OS stores encrypted wifi network passwords in a keychain 
rather than in plain text, getting users on the network at login with 
zero hassle. I know we've left paper cut land, but I'm just curious 
about whether this is fixable, and, if it is fixable, what it would take 
to fix it. This behavior has been reported 4 or 5 times within 
hundredpapercuts.

David