Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> Tom Lane wrote:
>> As I said already, if the user wishes the password to be secure, he
>> needs to encrypt it on the client side. Anything else is just the
>> illusion of security.
> Thinking some more, does encoding on the client side really improve
> things? It hides the user-typed password from prying eyes, but it
> doesn't prevent someone from using that md5 string to get into the
> database.
That's not the point --- anyone who can look at the md5 string is
already into the database. The threat that (I suppose) the OP is
worried about is that the user might use the same cleartext password
for other things, which means that someone who is able to swipe his
cleartext password might be able to get into those other services.
But the md5 password will not give enough information for that.
regards, tom lane