Passphrase window freezes my DE's panel - is this a bug?

scott092707 at aol.com scott092707 at aol.com
Mon Apr 27 03:16:14 CEST 2020


On 4/26/20 1:53 PM, Scott C Jacobs via Gnupg-users wrote:

The problem is, that even if I have a terminal window open into which I wanted to type xwininfo and xprop,
once the passphrase window appears, I cannot use the terminal or anything else - the passphrase window allows
nothing to happen until I enter the passphrase and click OK or click on cancel.  Then I could use the terminal and
type those commands, but the passphrase window I wished to query is gone after OK or cancel... 

>This is by design I think.  I'm pretty sure that it's been true since PGP if I recall correctly.  The idea is to not allow other software to run that could peek at what you are typing.  You might want to write your passphrase on a card to help you remember it.  But you can't run anything else while it is being entered.

First of all, this did not happen until the other day - I have been using my "click on the launcher icon to copy the passphrase to the clipboard" system for months now, and it worked fine.

Secondly, I could write the passphrase down...  I could write ALL my passwords down, and then I would not need a password manager!
Not very practical.

Thirdly, the password manager itself copies passwords to the clipboard, to be pasted into input fields.
If using the clipboard is unsafe, then GPG would disallow its use in password managers as well, would it not?

If one is supposed to have long, complicated, difficult-to-remember-and-type passwords (which one cannot even
see when they are being entered!), then one HAS to use a clipboard to get them from where they are stored into where they are needed,
and the passphrase is supposed to be even longer (since it unlocks access to all the others).  
There has to be a way to access the passphrase when the passphrase-entry window magically appears (which, naturally, is 
when one is short of time!)

Again - this disallowing of any input but that of the passphrase window is NEW.  It did not happen until recently.






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