In summary, even you are admitting that without compromise, your only recourse is to tell your boss 'no'.

If you aren't going to tell your boss 'no', the remaining choice is to compromise and get the cleartext passwords out of the module as requested. It's a feeble endeavor, to be sure, but it satisfies the request under its given constraints.

You have offered no alternative; in the absence of one, what is given is considered sufficiently proven for management.

Now -- I concur that under those constraints, the system cannot be unbroken. I argue that it can be made, however marginally, better.

Yes, someone who speaks Perl (or any of a dozen other C-like languages) will probably be able to hack the passwords if they have access to the module. But that does add a layer of knowledge required.

As they say in some southern regions in the USA, "It ain't much -- but it ain't nuthin'."

All of this is moot in the face of the actual task requested: Get the cleartext passwords out of the Perl module.

However stupid, however, moronic, however pointless, ultimately your job is to advise your boss, and then to do what your boss says -- or leave.

Those skilled in manipulating the politics and culture of a company have additional options; these are not directly available to me. I couldn't sell water to a rich man crawling across the Arizona desert.

I could write a Perl script to find the closest convenience store, though.

In reply to Re^7: encrypt passwords by marinersk
in thread encrypt passwords by fionbarr

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