Printing Settings & Passwords - issues

[tanstaafl]

This was from an email exchange...

> Name:   Alan Schaevitz
> Email: hidden for privacy
> Location: San Rafael, CA USA
> Comments: I am noting some problems with printing. Namely, although
> I respond Yes to printing master password and generated passwords,
> the printout for generated passwords is "undefined" for my specific
> accounts. Also, for one account (schwab.com) I have two entries in
> the Auto-populate panel (one for the schwab login and one for the
> schwab billpay login). However, the printout shows 3 entries and they
> all have the same note field (the one for the main entry) and, as I
> said, "undefined" in all the generated password fields. So I can't
> distinguish each of these separate logins. Mainly, I want a printout
> to put in my safe just in case Passwordmaker craps out or I die and
> my executor needs to get to my online sites!

Well, I just tried printing mine (had never wanted to, but just to see if it worked for me), and had some weird issues too...

This is going to be problematic for me, especially if I want to print the passwords.

1. When I select the 'Print' command (or hit 'Ctrl-p'), FFox opens a new tab, but the Passwordmaker Prompt asking me if I want to include generated passwords is not brought to the front - I have to click on it down in the taskbar to bring it to the front.

2. Only a few accounts printed, out of my 2 dozen or more - the Defaults, and the first three of the first group. I'm assuming this was because I chose to include generated passwords, but clicked 'Cancel' after the first three when I realized it was going to ask me the MP for each Account and I didn't know which Account it was asking me for each time, and since I use different MP's for different Accounts (I have a system, and know which ones go with which Accounts), realized that for this reason, this wasn't gonna work for me.

Now - if the User has 40 accounts - obviously they are either going to get prompted 40 times for their Master Password in order to be able to include the generated passwords in the printout, or you're gonna have to ask them once, and apply this one MP to all of the accounts, which is fine as long as they use the same one for everything. I don't think that is an assumption that should be made (personal bias, because *I* don't use the same one), but, I also don't really consider this a problem
for me, as I am not interested in printing the passwords, but I can see where some people might want to.

That said, I would still like to be able to prevent my Settings from being printed without requiring some kind of authentication, so, Eric, how about this: allow the user to assign a 'Settings Password', that will allow the user to protect/print all of their settings.

Now that I think about it, I guess this would be fulfilled by implementing the 'Encrypt Passwordmaker.rdf file' FR...

You could just prompt them once, but then the generated passwords would only be correct IF the User used the same Master Password for every account, and I don't think this should be assumed (of course, I'm basied, since *I* am one of those who don't use just one MP).

Something that could work for this would be to store the HASH of the MP with each account when it is created, then prompt for the MP once, then only prompt again if the hash didn't match. I actually like this idea, but don't know how hard it would be to implement...

One thing that would at least *help* when being prompted for the MP is a FR that I asked for a while back - putting the Account Name (or URL if the URL doesn't match an existing account) in the MP prompt window.

I still would like to see this FR fulfilled, but honestly - I have no desire to be able to print my passwords.

[Eric H. Jung]

Hi,

1. When I select the 'Print' command (or hit 'Ctrl-p'), FFox opens a new tab, but the Passwordmaker Prompt asking me if I want to include generated passwords is not brought to the front - I have to click on it down in the taskbar to bring it to the front

I cannot reproduce this. If you look here, you'll see the prompt is on top for me. Can you tell me what you did step-by-step so I can reproduce it?

Only a few accounts printed, out of my 2 dozen or more - the Defaults, and the first three of the first group. I'm assuming this was because I chose to include generated passwords

Can you try it without including generated passwords? Make sure you use the mousewheel or arrow keys to scroll down the page--the scrollbar on the right-hand-side of the tab is not accurate.

Now - if the User has 40 accounts - obviously they are either going to get prompted 40 times for their Master Password in order to be able to include the generated passwords in the printout

My thought was the user could just save the MPW to memory after the first prompt (or after getting tired of being prompted). Then he won't be prompted anymore.

That said, I would still like to be able to prevent my Settings from being printed without requiring some kind of authentication, so, Eric, how about this: allow the user to assign a 'Settings Password', that will allow the user to protect/print all of their settings. Now that I think about it, I guess this would be fulfilled by implementing the 'Encrypt Passwordmaker.rdf file' FR

Yes, it looks like a hashed password will have to be stored in order to prevent use of printing the settings and other reasons.

One thing that would at least *help* when being prompted for the MP is a FR that I asked for a while back - putting the Account Name (or URL if the URL doesn't match an existing account) in the MP prompt window.

I know. This is harder than you think.

[tanstaafl]

1. When I select the 'Print' command (or hit 'Ctrl-p'), FFox opens a new tab, but the Passwordmaker Prompt asking me if I want to include generated passwords is not brought to the front - I have to click on it down in the taskbar to bring it to the front

I cannot reproduce this. If you look here, you'll see the prompt is on top for me. Can you tell me what you did step-by-step so I can reproduce it?

1. Open Firefox.

2. Open PM (I tried all three different ways, same result)

3. Press 'Ctrl-P, or click 'File > Print Settings'

4. New blank tab opens, but PM prompt is hidden (it is flashing down in the taskbar, click on it, and it comes to the front).

Only a few accounts printed, out of my 2 dozen or more - the Defaults, and the first three of the first group. I'm assuming this was because I chose to include generated passwords

Can you try it without including generated passwords? Make sure you use the mousewheel or arrow keys to scroll down the page--the scrollbar on the right-hand-side of the tab is not accurate.

Sorry, thought I made that clear - it works fine (prints all settings for all accounts) if I don't include the passwords.

Now - if the User has 40 accounts - obviously they are either going to get prompted 40 times for their Master Password in order to be able to include the generated passwords in the printout

My thought was the user could just save the MPW to memory after the first prompt (or after getting tired of being prompted). Then he won't be prompted anymore.

Actually, it would probably be better to just do that anyway - if the user elects to include generated passwords, just save it to memory automatically after it is entered the first time, then clear it out of memory.

Now - what did you think of my idea of storing the hash of the MPW used for each account? This would allow you to be able to verify that the MPW that was used to generate each Account password was correct - in essence, a way of storing the MPW on a per account basis, without actually storing it (the hash, instead of the password itself). This would work well with the 'Visual Indicator' verification FR...

One thing that would at least *help* when being prompted for the MP is a FR that I asked for a while back - putting the Account Name (or URL if the URL doesn't match an existing account) in the MP prompt window.

I know. This is harder than you think.

I don't know - I was thinking this was going to be pretty hard to work out, after I started thinking about it... ;) I wish I could help with the code (actually, I guess I'm glad I can't - really, if I could code, I'd probably spend twice as much time on a computer as I do now, and I don't think my wife would stick around very long)...

[Eric H. Jung]

Working on this...

[tanstaafl]

Thanks...

One more thing - on the print dialog, it would be nice to have a 'Cancel' button that would simply close the Print Prompt without doing anything else.