"Debugging" a password dialog

[David Gümbel]

On Samstag 11 Dezember 2004 02:09, Robert Shearman wrote:
> David Gümbel wrote:
> >I am trying to get an application to run under Wine that requires a
> > login with a username and a password. The program runs all fine,
> > however I can't login with data that should work (and AFAIK works under
> > Windows).
> >
> >Having entered the password, in the corresponding part of the dialog I
> > only see "*****" (which is correct). However, when I change focus to
> > some other part of that dialog afterwards, the password field shows
> >"*************" (way more asterisks than before). The previous (i.e.
> >correct) length of ****s is restored when setting the focus back onto
> > the password field.
>
> Are you sure this isn't a security feature of the program? Does the
> program exhibit this behaviour in Windows?

I don't think so, no, but I'll check again. I am, however, pretty sure this 
is not a feature.

> >I have reason to believe that the password I entered is not correctly
> > passed on to the login procedure of the program. However, I am sort of
> > badly lacking a nice idea how to efficiently debug this thingy and
> > verify (falsify ;) that I'm right. So, does anybody have an idea?
>
> It is unlikely, but not impossible to be a bug in the edit control. That
> code has been around for ages and is well tested, but then again this
> program could be using some really weird side effects. I would look
> elsewhere though. 

OK, that sounds a lot like I was wrong assuming the problem is in the 
password dialog ;)

> What is the password being checked against? Is it 
> going over the network? Is it reading in a file off the disk and
> processing it? Is it using cryptography functions? Answering these will
> give you some clues with which to start debugging with.

The password is (I think) stored in a database file on disk. There's no 
networking involved at all, and I don't believe there's crypto being used. 

I'll try to look elsewhere now, that is - not in the dialog part of the 
system. Thank you for you input, I appreciate it.



Bye,



David