I don't think that's the original reason. It's more that email is an insecure medium in general. SMTP, POP3, IMAP, etc don't always use encrypted connections. It's becoming more common to encrypt them for the first hop and last hop, but end users have no control over the security of their message as it travels server-to-server. A man in the middle can easily inspect or even alter the contents of the message.

Sending passwords by email also has a worrying implication — it means that the site knows what your password is. Passwords should be hashed. A website shouldn't be able to send you your original password because it shouldn't know what your original password even is. Unix got rid of plain text passwords in 1973; this has been a well-known security principle for longer than many of us have been alive so there's really no excuse for still making this mistake.

(PS: for what it's worth, I don't think AnomalousMonk was disagreeing with you, just pointing out that "email XYZ via email" is a tautology.)

toby döt ink

In reply to Re^3: Emailing Passwords? In 2020? by tobyink
in thread Emailing Passwords? In 2020? by punklrokk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.