Password on server in plaintext

[Darax The Good]

If the server accepts the hashed password rather than working the hash out on its own then you only need the hash, not the password, to connect. In this case a malicious server administrator could take over people's accounts other servers (in the case that the people were foolish and used the same password on mulitple servers). It would also allow a hacker who got read access to the server to get access to people's accounts. If the server calculates the hash, then the hacker/malicious admin is stuck trying to reverse the hash, which should in most cases be impossible.

edit-about the field not being used-good point, perhaps creating a 'server version' field would be more appropriate. That way the field could be useful going forward.

[Rednaxela]

If the server accepts the hashed password rather than working the hash out on its own then you only need the hash, not the password, to connect. In this case a malicious server administrator could take over people's accounts other servers (in the case that the people were foolish and used the same password on mulitple servers). It would also allow a hacker who got read access to the server to get access to people's accounts. If the server calculates the hash, then the hacker/malicious admin is stuck trying to reverse the hash, which should in most cases be impossible.

In the case of the hacker/malicious admin, there isn't much that one can do. If the passwords are sent in plaintext or even encrypted plaintext, it's increadably easy for a truly malicious admin to just mod the server code to output the plaintext passwords anyways. In fact, all it would take is looking for the IFDEF WIN32 that disables hashing currently under windows, and make it's contents always happen.

And also, getting the plaintext password is much more of a security risk than the hash, because there's a chance that the user uses that password for other applications too (no, it's not smart to do that, but we can at least make the situation as good as possible for those cases), which is much worse than just gaining access to reletively few things:

CF and other things that use the same hash over the wire (where that same password is used) vs. Everything.(where that password is used)

[bort]

If you secure your server and are the only one to touch it,
then why do you need special hashes?
I dont think there are legions of hackers waiting to hack your Win box to get the Crossfire passwds.

[Rednaxela]

If you secure your server and are the only one to touch it,
then why do you need special hashes?
I dont think there are legions of hackers waiting to hack your Win box to get the Crossfire passwds.

Well, there are two topics going on:
-Hashing on the server: you have a point, but if the password going over the wire is going to be completely in hash form, then you would store the hash on the server anyways.
-Hashing across the wire: It is possible for a skilled hacker to intercept the signals going across the internet with planning, so sending plaintext passwords is a Bad Thing (tm)