This is a security problem and I wouldn't recommend it. But here's an idea to think about. Take a password, add a certain ammount of characters given by some algorithm in between each character (reversable obviously) then start using the pack/unpack functions. Once you have something that doesn't look anything like the password assign that value somewhere. Wherever your password is going to be transformed back, put a lot of pack/unpack statements that return values to a variable, but use the REAL pack and unpacking code to assign it to the default variable, then somewhere pick up the value in $_ . Adding a usless __DATA__ block might be a nice touch for a decoy.

I would think this would be enough to keep casual snoopers (who aren't very technical) out, but anyone who really wants to know will probably be able to tear through your script no matter what. Some of us actually have fun tearing apart sudo security schemese like this =)

In reply to Re: How to hide a password in a script? by archen
in thread How to hide a password in a script? by dataking

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.