Website Password Systems
Passwords are used on websites to authenticate users and are usually maintained on the Web server, meaning the browser on a remote system sends a password to the server (by HTTP POST), the server checks the password and sends back the relevant content (or an access denied message). This process eliminates the possibility of local reverse engineering as the code used to authenticate the password does not reside on the local machine.
Transmission of the password, via the browser, in plaintext means it can be intercepted along its journey to the server. Many web authentication systems use SSL to establish an encrypted session between the browser and the server, and is usually the underlying meaning of claims to have a "secure Web site". This is done automatically by the browser and increases integrity of the session, assuming neither end has been compromised and that the SSL/TLS implementations used are high quality ones.
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Famous quotes containing the word systems:
“The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air- conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them. The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)