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Maniphest T4733

pinentry-curses reveals pin
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Description

Hey guys,

I ran into a strange edge case on macOS Mojave 10.14.6, GnuPG 2.2.17 and Git 2.21.0 (Apple Git-122).

If a YubiKey is used to store private keys and pinentry-curses is used to enter the pin, everything works fine (a pin is prompted for and replaced by asterisks as it is typed) when a git push is initiated from iTerm2 (build 3.3.6).

But if a git push is initiated in Visual Studio Code (version 1.36.1) or Tower (version 2.6.6, build 359), pinentry-curses reveals the pin as it is type (see attachment).

Perhaps I am doing something wrong? Feels like a big deal from an opsec perspective.

How can I fix this?

Thanks,

Sun

Details

Version
gpg (GnuPG) 2.2.17

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Event Timeline

sunknudsen created this task.Oct 29 2019, 1:48 AM
• werner triaged this task as Normal priority.Oct 29 2019, 10:26 AM
• werner added projects: pinentry, MacOS.
• werner added a subscriber: • werner.

Then better do not use a curses pinentry. It can't guarantee that another process changes the tty properties. For security reasons it is better to run the pinentry in a different window (ie. a GUI based pinentry).

sunknudsen added a comment.Oct 29 2019, 11:54 AM

Thanks for the follow-up Werner.

It can't guarantee that another process changes the tty properties.

Can you please elaborate a tiny bit on that so I know what to dig for?

For security reasons it is better to run the pinentry in a different window (ie. a GUI based pinentry).

Why so? I guess you are referring to pinentry-mac. Are there others that you recommend?

Thanks!

• gniibe added a parent task: T4771: pinentry-tty/pinentry-curses interact a user as background process.Dec 5 2019, 6:59 AM