It’s 2023, why are websites actively preventing pasting into fields like passwords and credit card number boxes? I use a password manager for security, it’s recommended by my employer to use one, and it even avoids human error like accidentally fat-fingering keys, and best of all with the credit card number I don’t have to memorize anything or know a single digit/character!

I have to use the Don’t Fuck With Paste addon just to be able to paste my secrets into certain monthly billing websites; why is my electric provider and one of my banks so asinine that pasting cannot be allowed? I can only imagine downsides and zero upsides to this toxic dark-pattern behavior.

There is even a mention about this in NIST SP 800-63B, a standard for identity management that some companies must follow in the USA, which mentions forcefully rotating passwords and denying “password paste-in” as antiquated/bad advice:

Verifiers SHOULD permit claimants to use “paste” functionality when entering a memorized secret. This facilitates the use of password managers, which are widely used and in many cases increase the likelihood that users will choose stronger memorized secrets

Edit: I discovered that for Firefox users there’s a simpler way than exposing your secrets to someone’s third-party addon. Simply open about:config, search for dom.event.clipboardevents.enabled, and change it from true to false.

Edit 2: As some have pointed out, that config value interferes with regular functionality on some sites. Probably best to leave it alone unless you know what you’re doing.

  • evatronic@lemm.eeEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    There is no technical reason for there to be a maximum length on the user’s password.

    Watch:

    Here’s a password bitwarden generated for me:

    Bonded-Reforest-Prenatal7-Spoken-Straggler-Catcall

    Here’s the base64-encoded SHA3-512 hash for that password:

    Q2WaVLdTAg5T4xi3VB5PMI7GkAv3np9Usa2+uTMglbMcDDAdYXzUNgAzzYLoSWku/e007vkKfvSotzoriSKt4Q==

    Here’s the has for the password password:

    6adUhnNqVQr0/qhh4jeDBcSlVaBQlN7h3KL2iv6knMOlDo3m6hMepSExH01vsFShRugoL441/y5jaMGmLpCXFg==

    Notice how the thing the website should be storing in their database is exactly the same length, regardless of the input?

    For extra fun, here’s the hash for your sample password:

    GbxnrQ31PInMSu2ik2ZR5TefgXIInSJBxZ5zwcYmkRxzw07tZoxPqJbEmcbuTBpzCZzwLrqqcxz04p8ToGszRQ==

    Here’s a tool to generate your own hashes: https://www.liavaag.org/English/SHA-Generator/

    • r1veRRR@feddit.deEnglish
      8·
      1 year ago

      I mean, if we’re being pedantic, there’s a reasonable technical limit once the password reaches multiple MBs of data.

      But yes, there’s no good reason for the actual limits we’re seeing out in the wild.

      • zzz@feddit.deEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I mean, if we’re being pedantic, there’s a reasonable technical limit once the password reaches multiple MBs of data.

        But yes, there’s no good reason for the actual limits we’re seeing out in the wild.

        Yes @evatronic, this is of course what I meant with “except if the js starts crashing maybe”. I’m aware that hashes end up with the same length, no worries 😄