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Issue 914451: Autofill does not respect autocomplete="off"

bugs.chromium.org

221–230 of 383 posts

Re: Issue 914451: Autofill does not respect autocomplete="off"

#221

There's a major security flaw with auto-fill when it comes to passwords. Sure, it's hidden on screen, but you only have to change the password box's type, so it isn't "type='password'" and it is revealed. This only takes a matter of seconds. Chrome should remove the password if there is any attempt to change that form object. This flaw has been there for years, it's actually handy if I'm not sure what the password is…

Is this really an issue? Presumably anyone with access to the browser can acces saved passwords anyways; the censoring only prevents onlookers from reading it.

Re: Issue 914451: Autofill does not respect autocomplete="off"

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Touch based are not better. Your fingerprint is not a password, it's just an identifier and shouldn't be treated as a secret.

> Your fingerprint is not a password Correct, because a fingerprint makes a password to some extent redundant. > it's just an identifier and shouldn't be treated as a secret Correct, identifiers are not secrets. Your face is not a secret and your fingerprint either. The problem is that we use secrets to identfy someone, when we potentially already have tech which can identify someone without having to remember a secr…

> The password ... is a way of identifying that you are you.

That is not correct. The "system" identifies you by your ID (username - biometrics - whatever). And for the system to ensure that whatever actions you perform on it, are really coming from you, you have to add proof of your identity to the orders for those actions. You use a secret to create that proof of identity. The secret is yours, the identity is the system's (what it uses to identify you).

If you use something you don't treat as a secret (such as your fingerprint) as your proof of identity, you'll be loosing it left and right - you'll be inviting everyone around to impersonate you. Drinking a can of coke and throwing it to the bin would be the same as printing your password in cards and passing them around.

Re: Issue 914451: Autofill does not respect autocomplete="off"

#223
post #197
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately a few developers are morons who misuse features, and browser vendors try hard to work around them. Case in point, lots of websites used to put `autocomplete="off"` on password boxes, which breaks some password managers. IIRC that’s why Chrome (and other browsers) decided to sometimes ignore the `autocomplete` attribute in the first place. Of course that doesn’t justify ignoring it completely (just for p…

Exactly. Autocomplete=off gets misused. For example, there was a browsergame I played where because of idiotic "security considerations" autocomplete=off got applied to the login screen. At that time for me that meant typing in the password manually, thus picking a bad password. So it's a good thing in that situation when the browser ignores the attribute.

Very egoistic and ignorant way of viewing things. Disabling autocomplete on login screens has its uses, especially on any app that has shared-terminal type of use, where you cannot trust the user to make the smart choice of not remembering their password - or evening exposing the previous users emails that were used.

You picking a bad password has nothing to do with this feature.

Re: Issue 914451: Autofill does not respect autocomplete="off"

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Touch based are not better. Your fingerprint is not a password, it's just an identifier and shouldn't be treated as a secret.

> Your fingerprint is not a password Correct, because a fingerprint makes a password to some extent redundant. > it's just an identifier and shouldn't be treated as a secret Correct, identifiers are not secrets. Your face is not a secret and your fingerprint either. The problem is that we use secrets to identfy someone, when we potentially already have tech which can identify someone without having to remember a secr…

Password authenticated key exchange algorithms (PAKE) solves the dictionary of secrets problem, by hiding the password from the server.

Re: Issue 914451: Autofill does not respect autocomplete="off"

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your fingerprint is not a password Correct, because a fingerprint makes a password to some extent redundant. > it's just an identifier and shouldn't be treated as a secret Correct, identifiers are not secrets. Your face is not a secret and your fingerprint either. The problem is that we use secrets to identfy someone, when we potentially already have tech which can identify someone without having to remember a secr…

Anonymity is weakened if we tie authentication to biometrics. Something you know (as in password) is always theoretically more secure than something you are (your physical characteristics).

I think the statement you make about "something you know" always being more secure is not nearly as clear cut as you present it.

A combination of "something you know" and "something you have" is always going to be a very strong authentication scenario, and making "something you have" a non-hackable thing that truly only you can have (i.e not a USB key or a TOTP seed etc.) is a good choice.

The catch here is that when you mention biometrics, you make the assumption of static biometrics (rightfully so, as most methods like Touch ID and Face ID are static), but if you combine lets say face biometrics with liveness checks, you are getting into a territory where faking them becomes much much more difficult (there are various mechanisms out there, the good ones rely on completely random interactions and light-bouncing detection methods as an example).

The real challenge is how do you make these very strong biometric methods frictionless and cheap? Or how do you introduce similar controls - like liveness - for easier methods like fingerprints?

And using any of these (ideally) has absolutely nothing to do with anonymity. You are not anonymous online regardless of what you use for authentication - and you are frankly not smart if you assume thats the case. A company offering a service with biometrics is no different from a company doing the same based on email/username and a password, if they do privacy and security right.

I could actually get into a much longer rant about this last part, as it blows my mind how many netizens are all about privacy and whatnot, yet are willing to expose every single detail about them when its convenient from them...

Re: Issue 914451: Autofill does not respect autocomplete="off"

#226
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That begs the question, at which point does autofill happen in an iframe? So I pay for an ad, and have a password, creditcard number, address etc. form in the background. Does the browser autofil, or does it autofill when the user starts to fill in a form in the foreground? Asking for a friend.

> That begs the question Offtopic, but no it doesn't [1]. [1] https://grammarist.com/rhetoric/begging-the-question-fallacy...

When a phrase is used the “wrong” way more often than the right way, it ceases to be wrong.

Re: Issue 914451: Autofill does not respect autocomplete="off"

#227

This has turned into a sad chicken-race between Google and developers, with lots of innovative workarounds on Stackoverflow. Their tactic of overruling web developers doesn't work, it only make things more complicated for everyone, since many of the workarounds have other negative side-effects. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12374442/chrome-ignores-... ## Example 1 For a reliable workaround, you can add this cod…

Preach. Them changing the rules and overriding the usage of this attribute is ridiculously stupid in the first place. HTML attributes are there for a reason, developers are supposed to be able to use them and they are supposed to work as expected. But in order to push their password management and form filling functionality, they just give everyone a finger.

Re: Issue 914451: Autofill does not respect autocomplete="off"

#228
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should developer be able to make it impossible to close browser or open 100 new tabs? No. Should developer decide that fields are autocomplete off or green or show javascript warnings? Absolutely yes. If user wish to change that, users thing. The browser/google has no business to be mediator here, second guess application they know nothing about and manipulate it. The browser should be predictable, well specified and…

I've heard plenty of people on HN say password managers should ignore autocomplete=off and I agree with them. Because that setting is mostly applied by organisations like banks who incorrectly think they're making things more secure by doing so. IMHO there are cases where autocomplete=off should be respected, and other times when it shouldn't be - it's certainly not as simple as saying always do or always don't respe…

Password managers should ignore autocomplete=off in login screens, but not in administration screens where you’re editing other people’s credentials.

IMO the distinction could be made to not automatically fill when the autocomplete=off but instead add a button to let the user initiate it

Re: Issue 914451: Autofill does not respect autocomplete="off"

#229
post #94
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imo, valid use case for autocomplete=off is "the developer of webapp wants it". Literally that and nothing more.

It's called "user agent", not "developer's agent". We'd be in a terrible situation if the browsers just followed developer's whims. Cf. popup blocking.

Then ask the user before filling anything.

Re: Issue 914451: Autofill does not respect autocomplete="off"

#230
post #138
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It causes spec-compliant password managers to not work. Unfortunately, disabling autocomplete for password fields is an often used form of security-theatre

Here's the tricky thing and I don't have a solution that doesn't get abused. I hate that lots of bank do this but I also have a use case for password autocomplete=off. We operate in an industry where shared computer access is very common and the risk of users saving password in browser is real and too high. As I said don't know what the answer is. I definitely want someone using password manager be able to use them.…

Isn’t it on the people administering those systems to disable autofill on their side?
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