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by dsp1234 3432 days ago
Shower Thought:

Why doesn't the browser hash the inputs for all password fields, then compare them when attempting to submit a form, and alert the user that they are doing something insecure?

5 comments

Besides issues like requiring javascript or something, its usually not a useful step. The hash of the password can be stolen just as easily as the password itself. You've just made a new password.

If you salt the password with the url, all you've done is made a unique password per website which is what you were supposed to be doing anyway.

The point was for the browser to warn the end user about password re-use.

The browser doesn't need javascript to see the contents of a password field, or to show an indicator in the browser's chrome. It's the browser.

If you salt the password with the url, all you've done is made a unique password per website which is what you were supposed to be doing anyway.

Note that browsers can already store password lists (ex: Chrome settings, search manage passwords). There would just be an extra step to compare those passwords together.

Because my passwords for google.com, gmail.com, youtube.com, and google.co.uk are exactly the same, and the browser has no way of knowing that that's okay.

(Google specifically has probably rerouted everything through google.com these days, but the general problem exists.)

Its a real problem, in the new anti-phishing protocols (U2F/UAF) have some ideas.

The Web Origin Concept - https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6454

The also require the server to provide a list of Origins that are valid for the protocol, if the domain your logging into is not in the list, the challenge of the server will not be signed. Its called AppID in the protocol.

See: https://fidoalliance.org/download/

I have this exact problem with LastPass. One of my few pain points with it.
You can define equivalent domains in LastPass to solve that.
Yes!!! Thank you!!!
Wouldn't that essentially give an attacker a nice list of websites where the user uses the same credentials?
Sounds kind of rube-goldberg-y compared to automatically generating and managing a unique password for every site.
Probably not a bad idea. But at that point you're fighting human nature.