Fatal Error That Went Away

[John Liebson]

Just wondering if there is any plausible explanation for this: PasswordMaker was active when I tried to log on to MozillaZine. That log-on had worked several hours earlier, but now MozillaZine rejected me.

Believing that MozillaZine was at fault, I posted a message in a non-log-on area, asking that my password be reset temporarily.

Then, more out of curiosity than anything else, I tried accessing two other systems, both of which rejected my log-on. I then restarted Bon Echo, restarted PasswordMaker, and the two systems that I had tried after trying MozilaZine both worked.

Any more or less plausible explanation of what happened?

[Eric H. Jung]

Hm, well, I haven't done any testing of PasswordMaker against Firefox 2.0 yet. Perhaps there is some incompatibility you've stumbled upon. Has anyone else tried PasswordMaker with Firefox 2.0?

-Eric

[John Liebson]

Hm, well, I haven't done any testing of PasswordMaker against Firefox 2.0 yet. Perhaps there is some incompatibility you've stumbled upon. Has anyone else tried PasswordMaker with Firefox 2.0?

-Eric

A few things as follow-ups:

1. The episode earlier today was with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1b1) Gecko/20060817 BonEcho/2.0b1 - Build ID: 2006081703.

2. Once I was able to get back into MozillaZine, I used PasswordMaker to replace my temporary password with the one that I've been using with PM. I logged off and back on successfully. I just finished another MozillaZine session using the PM password.

3. After posting my original message, it occurred to me that I've had a few other times when a password that had been working was rejected. In those cases, as far as I can recall, I did not then try other PM-coded sites, so do not have any way of knowing if a restart of Bon Echo/PM would have fixed the password failure. Those failures were with previous Bon Echo nightly releases.

If I get another password rejection, I'll restart and see if the password works then.

[thibros]

You can also look at the password in clear, and see whether it's a transmission problem or a generation problem.

One source of error is to have a misspelled master password. Then PasswordMaker generates the wrong passwords, without you noticing it. You wouldn't be able to log in anywhere. After restarting PasswordMaker with the correct password it'd be working again.

Do you keep your master password in memory or on disk? And do you input it once or twice?

[John Liebson]

You can also look at the password in clear, and see whether it's a transmission problem or a generation problem.

One source of error is to have a misspelled master password. Then PasswordMaker generates the wrong passwords, without you noticing it. You wouldn't be able to log in anywhere. After restarting PasswordMaker with the correct password it'd be working again.

Do you keep your master password in memory or on disk? And do you input it once or twice?

Not in order:

1. Are you saying that a user can enter an incorrect master password and that PasswordMaker will go active? I thought that PM would reject an incorrect master password, although I've never tried to do that.

2. As a follow-up to (1.):

a. Until recently, I kept the master password on disk, and I believe (I do not actually know) that the previous incidents of passwords not working was with the password on disk. For security reasons, I've recently kept the master password only in memory, and it is possible that I had entered it incorrectly earlier today. Thus, if PM will "wake up" with an incorrect master password, that might explain what happened today; however, if the earlier episodes were with the master password on disk, that explanation is not correct.

And, as yet another facet of this, it was only a day or two ago that I changed from typing the master password twice to once; again, if typing it incorrectly once would allow PM to work, then that could be at least a partial explanation for today's problems.

I changed to single typing because, as I had posted previously, my master password is rather lengthy, making it a bother to type. I got the instructions on how to change the master, but that seemed even more effort than keeping and typing the long master password. So, it's back to typing the master twice.

3. I've never looked at the transmission of the passwords in the clear; I could do that, but as the failure rate has been so small, I don't know that I'd see anything.

4. While typing this, it occurred to me to return to my (2.): When I could not get one of the failed passwords to work this morning, I copied it into the clipboard, then pasted it into the password box at a site, which failed. If--once more--an incorrectly entered master password allowed PM to start responding, then it is apparent that the specific password I copied into the password box was incorrect.

[John Liebson]

A follow-up: I changed to having to type the master password twice, whereupon I was informed that a password I was trying to use was incorrect.

I then retyped the master password twice, whereupon the failed forum password worked.

Conclusion: Incorrect master password(s), even though they allow PasswordMaker to run, cause problems for John Liebson. Request: A new version of PM just for me....

I've reverted to having the master password on disk; too much bother to type it twice incorrectly.

[thibros]

Conclusion: Incorrect master password(s), even though they allow PasswordMaker to run, cause problems for John Liebson. Request: A new version of PM just for me....

It can cause problems not only for you, we are aware of this problem, and the new version wouldn't be just for you. Look at this thread.

You can try following, if you don't want to keep your lengthy password on disk too much:

When you open PasswordMaker, you see the blue generated password, if you haven't changed it to asterisks. Input your master password. If you clear the field "Using URL" you see a password that you can memorize (it's enough if you memorize part of it, like the numbers that are in it) and you'll notice at once if you have misspelled your master password. You can also use an actual URL of course, if you like.

The advantage of not having a password verification is that people can use a weak password, although they shouldn't of course. If PasswordMaker would reject a wrong password, someone having acces to your system could easily try the most likely passwords like "qwerty", "12345", "pass" and the name of your pet dog, and maybe find it. Now they'd have to actually try a login at one of your accounts, which takes much more time, and might be a treshold if they just want to guess your password "for the fun of it".

[John Liebson]

Thibros: The addition of an "alarm" to notify the user of failure to enter the master password correctly would, for me, solve the problem quite well. I don't mind typing a long master password IF I know that I've done so correctly or otherwise; with that alarm built into Password Maker, I'd revert to keeping the master in memory only. Thanks for the link to the thread on this.

Now, would you like any information from Wegg, John, Finnair The Art of Flying Since 1923. 1983: NC, NP, Printed by Finnair Printing Department? Be happy to look up the information in my copy of the book....

[Miquel 'Fire' Burns]

Now, would you like any information from Wegg, John, Finnair The Art of Flying Since 1923. 1983: NC, NP, Printed by Finnair Printing Department? Be happy to look up the information in my copy of the book....

Um... is that spam?

[John Liebson]

Um... is that spam?

It is only spam if you ignore the fact that Thibros is from Koli, Finland.

[thibros]

Now, would you like any information from Wegg, John, Finnair The Art of Flying Since 1923. 1983: NC, NP, Printed by Finnair Printing Department? Be happy to look up the information in my copy of the book....

Thanks for the offer, I do wonder what was the first plane in the finnair fleet.   Actually I'm not very much in the history of flying, but I do prefer Finnair over other companies, even when the others are cheaper.
And I'm waiting for Flightsimulator X to come out end of the year, hopefully they'll have a better coverage of the hills and forests here.

[...] Thibros is from Koli, Finland.

You won't usually find Koli on a map, only 279 people live here, but lots of tourists. The closest city is Joensuu, near the border to Russia.

Back to topic, John, do you want us to add your vote to the feature request list under 'master password verification'?

[John Liebson]

Thanks for the offer, I do wonder what was the first plane in the finnair fleet.   Actually I'm not very much in the history of flying, but I do prefer Finnair over other companies, even when the others are cheaper.
And I'm waiting for Flightsimulator X to come out end of the year, hopefully they'll have a better coverage of the hills and forests here.

As is the case with nearly all airlines, it is hard to know exactly when the airline actually started. Finnair, in particular, has a very convoluted history. I'd have to reread many, many, pages of the book to try to trace the family tree.

So, suffice it to say the following:

1. The first Finnish-owned aviation company that was a predecessor to Finnair was Aero O/Y, founded 12 September 1923; that date is generally accepted as the founding date of what became Finnair. The company's first aircraft was a German registered Junkers F13, D-335, acquired 14 March 1924; the first commercial service was to Tallinn, carrying mail only, 20 March; the flight was from Aero's base in Helsinki.

2. And, after many permutations, the first use of the name "Finnair" was in the spring of 1953, used for marketing purposes. The first plane to carry the new corporate marketing name was a Convair 340, OH-LRA, which left the San Diego plant 7 February 1953; she entered commercial service, Helsinki-Copenhagen-Düsseldorf, 19 April 1953.

You won't usually find Koli on a map, only 279 people live here, but lots of tourists. The closest city is Joensuu, near the border to Russia.

First Finnair service to Joensuu was by DC-3, OH-LCB, 19 June 1954.

Back to topic, John, do you want us to add your vote to the feature request list under 'master password verification'?

ABSOLUTELY!

[Eric H. Jung]

Tanstaafl, did you ever get a chance to add this vote to the FRL?

[Miquel 'Fire' Burns]

I added it this vote.