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From: Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address>
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Ebay hacked
Date: Sun, 25 May 2014 19:33:23 +1000
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On 25/05/2014 5:45 AM, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
> Rich <rich@example.com> writes:
>
>> Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> wrote:
>>> Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> writes:
>>
>>>> Hard to say, but Fleabay has *always* been incompetent.
>>
>>> Now ebay apparently botched the password reset page too by not allowing
>>> pasting from the clipboard. Ars writes about it at
>>> http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/05/after-the-breach-ebays-flawed-password-reset-leaves-much-to-be-desired/
>>
>> That is likely the result of some managerial drone idiot who is
>> technically incompetent thinking that crooks perform brute force
>> password search by:
>>
>> 1) using a browser, and;
>> 2) driving the browser via copy&paste
>>
>> Neither is true, but the managerial drone idiot got to look like he/she
>> did something useful to the other managerial drone idiots by
>> "increasing security".
>
> I think it's driven from the idea that having to type your password
> (usually twice) means it will be less likely that you enter the wrong
> one and be locked out.  The particular fear I've come across is
> preventing cut and paste from the first box to that awful "retype
> password" box, thereby propagating a typo.

Though given that there is almost invariably an automated mechanism for 
recovering from a forgotten password, it's not a valid reason, though 
I'll concede that that may have been the thinking behind it.

Sylvia.