sebastianw/gallery2picasa — Issue #10: Passwords on command line are insecure
Author: mhrivnak
Created: 2011-11-04 23:16:21+00:00
State: open

The script currently requires credentials for the database and for a Google account to be specified on the command line. This is insecure for two primary reasons:

* While the script is running, other users on the system can see the credentials in a process list such as that given by `ps -Af` on a linux machine.
* Shells like bash are likely to store the command in a history file, and it's a bad idea for lots of reasons to have these credentials stored in clear text history.

In general, the same reasons we don't want passwords in URLs apply here.

Perhaps it would be more reasonable to use a small settings file, or take the passwords interactively, or both. I'm happy to do this work myself, but please speak up if there are any requests about how it should be implemented.