It matters that you don't seem to understand the threat model here. You think your passwords are protected somehow in other applications, but they're simply not. The fact is that they're still trivially recoverable, and if the bad guy can read them at all than he already has access to fully compromise your entire OS user account. So, you're arguing that we take measures to make users think they're safe when they've already surrendered any pretense of security. Effectively, you're asking that we lull our users into a false sense of security.

I've enumerated this multiple times now, so I'm not sure how else to explain it. The simple fact is that you need to lock your user account if you want to protect your information. If you don't do that, nothing else really matters because it's all just theater and won't actually stop anyone willing to invest minimal effort.

I am a tad shocked by your reply, and this for several reasons. Let's not even talk about how you inferred Eliott's credentials, or lack thereof, based on his disagreeing with your approach.

You write about "lulling your users into a false sense of security." If that is true, then how do you explain that the 'show' button only appears when clicking a password? In the name of full disclosure, shouldn't you make that option immediately visible?

Furthermore, contrary to what was posted here, I believe that you encrypt passwords when storing them. On Windows, you would use the user's password as a "master password" in fact. So, kudos for that. But, wait, isn't this a case of using a master password to lull the user... etc? (because, you know, things such as Ophcrak do not exist?)

I am not going to re-iterate what was already written about the cable guy being able to lift your password in 10 seconds, it's simply a scenario you cannot dismiss and it seems strange to me as I would expect you guys to do some persona-based design rather than deal in hypotheticals (cf. "trivially recoverable")

So, yes, Chrome is an excellent product. And yes, from an absolute standpoint, you make valid points. I simply do not believe that you are the only one here doing so, and if you are willing to post comment on HN, then hopefully you are also ready to acknowledge that things are not as clearcut as you make them to be.

You're right, locking the operating system will secure it. But people aren't doing that. And people lend their computers to friends sometimes. It happens. I think the actual situation is that you don't understand how people are using computers, and how people expect them to behave - which is very important.

Your software allows me to open up one application and see all passwords. It's likely the single most-used application, and the easiest attack vector on the machine. If I wanted your password, I'd try Chrome first. It's very widely-used, and therefore a huge vector. That is the problem here.

Either change it, or better communicate the need to lock your system. Because to an average user on the street, this is a scary thing to be able to do so easily.

Is there a public point of contact that I can speak to about this?

Elliottkmember is right here. Chrome's approach to this is absurd. What if you simply don't want friends, coworkers, significant others browsing your passwords? At least tell users that if they choose to save passwords in Chrome, that everyone who uses their computer, even pretty non-technical people, will be able to access those passwords. Tell them that storing their passwords in Chrome is unsafe.

Justin, can you tell us the real reason Chrome does it this way? Because the reasons you list so far don't make sense.

Please don't invent motivations for the statements people make when you don't like what they've stated so far.

If you don't want people browsing your passwords, you can't ever give them access to your user account or your unlocked desktop. That's it, that is the entire solution. Any other method of protecting the passwords is vulnerable as long as the potential attacker has physical access to the unlocked desktop.

Now, perhaps some of this is mitigated by the fact that most of those friends, coworkers, significant others won't know how to install a keylogger or install extensions - but some small percentage will anyway, and those users who were lulled into a false sense of security will have been just as exploited anyway.

>If you don't want people browsing your passwords, you can't ever give them access to your user account or your unlocked desktop. That's it, that is the entire solution.

Nope.

Just don't use Chrome. That's an even better solution.

Hahahahahhhh.

Let me teach you a neat trick (I'll use firefox as an example, but this can be done in any browser because it's a "feature" of HTML).

>Open firefox and navigate to a login page where your password is saved

>Right click on password box and click inspect element

>In the console, change type="password" to type=""

>Move your eyes back to the password field

Oh dear, what's this?!

Protip: Don't store your passwords in your browsers if you let other people use your computer. End of story.

Ha... The people complaining really are novices, looking for something to get outraged over. Every operating system allows multiple user accounts. I recommend people start learning how to use them.

I'm not a novice, but I would prefer that it wasn't trivial for a novice to access my passwords if I'm away from the keyboard for 30 seconds. A novice is going to have not a single clue of what to do with a console, but they can get at passwords in plaintext with four clicks with Chrome. No other browser makes it this easy to get at passwords in plaintext.

> No other browser makes it this easy to get at passwords in plaintext.

In Firefox you can go to preferences, security, and saved passwords. And News Flash: If you leave your wallet unattended for 30 seconds, someone could take your money. I guess wallet makers should include a warning too?

> In Firefox you can go to preferences, security, and saved passwords.

Incorrect if you set a master password, which Firefox allows you to do and is the reason why everyone's saying 'wtf, chrome?' and leaving firefox alone.

IF you set a master password... But how many people do that? By the way, you can set up user profiles in Chrome.

That's not the point. The point is that Chrome lacks this option, which, again, is why nobody's heckling Firefox right now. This isn't a thread about people failing to configure their software, it's a thread about a popular piece of software that's bungling some trivial security features.

How many? ALL the smart people.

As for the dumb ones, they're storing their passwords on a sticky-post. Or using Chrome.

Thanks. By chance, I needed to recover a password (one of my own of course) today and I remembered that trick.

Right, I'm not arguing against any of that. The point is if it's going to be that insecure, Chrome should make more of an effort to make it clear. They could do this by displaying a warning alongside the prompt to save a password.

Also, just because some people will be able to access the passwords with physical access doesn't mean it's not worth doing basic/unsecure locking. I'd rather use a system where people need to have the know how to use keyloggers in order to break, over one where Joe Schmoe can walk in and take everything.

In the end I have always known the security issues with saving passwords so I don't save any banking passwords or email account passwords in any browser.

"The point is if it's going to be that insecure, Chrome should make more of an effort to make it clear"

And what's a better way to make it clear than actually showing the passwords ?

A better way (than showing the passwords) to make it clear that storing the passwords is insecure was in the very next sentence after the snippet you quoted.

Read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishmen...

Then tell me what's better:

- Asking users to store password, and having a menu hidden in the guts of Chrome's settings that most users will never look at.

OR

- Asking users to store password, and prompting them at the same time that doing so is insecure.

Keeping in mind that the vast majority of users of this software are average, non-techies.

What about the situation where I drop my computer off for service. While I may remember to delete all the passwords, I doubt my dad will...Now we have the possibility that a service tech who I will never meet can harvest credentials and sell them on the black market.

The real reason is simple. Get people to fear their real life circles so that, by contrast, they'll be more inclined to share their private information on the Internet.

After all, google's business model depends directly on how much private information is shared over much of the internet.

1) Chrome doesn't show "all passwords". It only shows passwords that Chrome knows about. The two categories might overlap, but they're not actually the same.

2) Either the browser demands an unlock password every single time it queries the password store--which is probably not an acceptable experience for most users--or the browser can arbitrarily read the password store when left unattended. There's no meaningful middle ground here. An option to demand a credential before unlocking the store might be nice for nerds, but nerds don't need it anyway, because they can use 1Password (or similar) to do this for them. It's simply not tenable for normals. Good grief, just look at the wailing and moaning that the UAC prompts in Windows Vista generated. Those prompts by default didn't even demand credentials, just a click through.

Hm, I agree with the author of the article on this. I think, the default should be, that the user will be prompted to define a master password, which unlocks the password store. User might choose not wanting to set this password, but then he should be warned that all his stored passwords will be accessible by anyone using his computer with his credentials.

"his stored passwords will be accessible by anyone using his computer with his credentials."

But this is EXACTLY Justin's point: EVEN with a master password, they'd be accessible in other ways by anyone using his computer, because it's just stored in the keychain - and if they add a master password, people will think that makes it more secure.

The solution here is to remove the show button - don't add any kind of master password - because that's just snake oil.

>EVEN with a master password, they'd be accessible in other ways by anyone using his computer

Maybe (there are simple but very effective prevention methods against keyloggers etc.), but the main point is: it's not all black and white. There are varying levels of security (and varying levels of "hacker skills"). Passwords encrypted with a master password are at least a couple of levels safer than those displayed in plain text.

If they're autofilled, which is the very reason to store them, then it doesn't matter how deep you store them. The browser will dig it for you automatically.

But only after the password store was decrypted after providing the master password, or not? And that is good enough for me. If I let someone to use my computer, of course I will close the browser before. So he can use my computer, launch the browser, but will not be able to access my passwords, since he doesn't know the master password.

If you actually _want_ someone's password and you have access to their account, there are many things you can do, all equally easy.

The more interesting argument here is the "crime of convenience" - where someone didn't want the passwords, but just saw them laying around in plain sight. But that isn't actually the case in Chrome: it's like four clicks. You have to actually be trying to find them.

The point is that 4 clicks is a LOT more convenient than most people would expect.

Not to mention this doesn't seem to be an oversight by the Chrome team - it seems this is 'as designed'.

Isn't a more likely crime of convenience that you hand your friend your computer, he types "gmail.com" to login to his mail, but he automatically logs in to your gmail, and then he realizes he can do pretty much anything on your computer as you now (including changing all passwords linked to your gmail account)?

Why are you more concerned about something he has to go digging through settings purposely to find, than something he is almost guaranteed to stumble across?

Wrong. Who cares if chrome shows the password? If someone has access to the browser with saved passwords they can easily just go to a site that's been saved and login and change said password so having chrome not show the PW would do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING

The use case people are talking about such as a jealous partner/spouse, or coworker, or only has access to a computer for about 30 seconds while your in the bathroom, does not have enough time to search through all of your gmail or accounts, nor would they want to change your password since then clearly you would know. What they would want to do is see your password, and then later on when there alone they could login to your account on their own computer and casually browse your accounts without your knowledge. Yes Gmail in tiny letters in the footer says if your logged in at two locations but once again this is in regards to non technical users like your parents.

The threat model hiding the passwords wants to address is not about thieves, criminals, 'bad guys' etc.. Instead it's about protecting your password from jealous boy/girlfriends, friends who want to prank you, curious kids, etc., while you leave the room for a couple of minutes.

In many situations its cumbersome or not socially acceptable to log out if someone just wants to use your browser for a second, because that implies you mistrust the other person. On the other hand, you wouldn't necessarily give the other person your passwords, of course.

I guess what many people expect is that passwords you save in the browser should be really hard to get out. There should be a function to recover them, because it can really be a life saver, and because it would give a false sense of security otherwise. But this function should be in a separate tool, and it could be really cumbersome to use (only runs in safe mode, is a command line tool, displays a full screen warning in red on black, plays a loud fanfare :-), etc.). It should be the equivalent of taking a bolt cutter to your bicycle lock, when you lost the key.

What people want here is not more security in a strict technical sense. Most people understand that you should log out, and if necessary enable disc encryption and/or physically secure your computer, to be safe against "bad guys". What people want in addition to this is a layer of obscurity, a social speed bump. Something that makes it inconvenient for nosey people to see your passwords, that adds friction and shows them they are doing something wrong.

(Oh, and having a master password (that is forgotten after a few minutes) does offer perfect protection against anybody who doesn't know how to install a keylogger etc.. I guess I and many other people are mainly worried about "foes" that are not so technically adept.)

I take it that you are unaware of the concept of defense in-depth, because your argument is essentially: well if they can come in the front door, then they can open the garage & steal my car too easy, so putting lock on the doors would make people think their car was secure. To enable a person to lock the car door would be silly because once a person has access to your house, they own everything in it. While no security measure is perfect, and with enough motivation & resources anything can be cracked, making things a bit more difficult with master password locking, etc. will stop casual security breaches: I.e. a boyfriend/girlfriend finds out their SO uses Chrome, so he/she steals their SO’s passwords from Chrome in seconds to later use against them after a break up, or to monitor them, etc. This happened (to a friend of mine BTW) and had Chrome had a master password, the SO would never have been able to do it because most people do not have the resources available to do it, an those people are the most irresponsible with having access. This thought that by making something less secure, you are in fact helping the user from having a false belief—that they are secure—is an ignorant decision at best because nothing is secure, but things can be more secure. & from I have learned balancing convenience & security usually falls somewhere between. a 5 second to breach to breach security policy (Chrome) is no where near (the standard) 5 seconds to unlock by typing in a master pass with a default 10 minute idle lock.

Basically, you are fighting ignorance with even greater ignorant decisions.

I'm a professional programmer with more than 20 years of experience and I think noivad makes an excellent point here. If you apply Justin Schuh's argument to door locks, the conclusion would be that door locks are insecure so don't even bother having them in the first place. How are they insecure ? Take an axe and break the door down. That should probably bypass almost any kind of residential door. Alternatively, break a window.

The reason to have a master password to protect Chrome passwords, for most people and in 99.9% of cases, is that not that we fear we'll get hacked by some random jerk. It's to prevent a casual acquaintance from discovering our passwords easily.

At this point, I think what may have happened is that, at some point, the Google Chrome Security made a decision based on logic that had numerous merits, but doesn't work too well in practice. Now that they've committed themselves over and over by defending this practice, they're so vested in this decision, that they'll defend it, even to their professional demise.

Again, I think their original decision not to have a master password was a smart decision, but not a wise one. As an analogy to door locks again, the smart decision is not to have door locks because they're very insecure (think breaking down a door or window with an axe).

It sounds like this Google Chrome security policy will most likely not change until some significant leadership changes are made over there..

> It sounds like this Google Chrome security policy will most likely not change until some significant leadership changes are made over there..

If someone starts their first sentence with name calling, you know they're not mature enough to have a real discussion.

You might have noticed (from her screenshots) that she is using Mac OS X.

Simply gaining physical access to the machine should ABSOLUTELY NOT enable an attacker to extract practically all web passwords in something like 15 seconds, without any special tools.

Are you completely ignorant of how the OS X Keychain works and should be implemented application-side, or are you just willfully ignoring it?

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's all take a step back and try to see the forest for the trees. I read Mr. Kember's article (as well as numerous others linking to it around the web today) and what I read made me concerned enough to delete all of my passwords from Chrome until I understand a little more about the issue.

justinschuh seems to have a deep technical understanding of programming and program security so I will defer to his greater understanding and make sure that I secure access to my computer when I am not physically present.

With all of that, my concern is that justinschuh seems to believe that anyone who has physical access to my computer and wants to do something malicious will have a deep understanding of programming, and that is silly. What about my druggie cousin who comes to my birthday party. He has no programming skills, but if he knew one simple URL he now has passwords to my bank account, my Amazon account and a ton of other accounts that he can use to transfer money or otherwise feed his habit at my expense. Or how about my ex-wife who gains access to my laptop because my daughter needed it for a school project. Now my ex, who has zero programming knowledge, nor does she understand what "threat model" even means, has passwords to all of my accounts including Facebook and Twitter that she can use to seriously harm my social/professional life.

So, you see, I get that you understand the programmatic "threat model," my problem is that you seem to be too smart to see that not all threats come from tech savvy "hackers." Some threats just come from opportunistic malfeasors, and I don't need to add any new opportunities to the seemingly unending list of ways people can screw up my life.

This is exactly my feeling too. Justin seems too smart by half.

His attitude is very much like an ivory tower academic who is befuddled that people don't follow best practices.

I also get the feeling he's not used to having to admit he's wrong. I guess you don't make it to 'head of security' at Google by having a little humility but his responses are really not very encouraging.

You should probably direct your anger to the author of the article for exposing this to people like your druggie cousin who comes over for your birthday party if that's your main concern.

As long as your password keychain is unsecured, EVERY browser does this -- it's just a matter of knowing where the passwords are stored in the browser as plaintext. If you don't want people to access your accounts, then secure them. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either your passwords are conveniently stored in plaintext so you can login easier, or you take actions to secure your account and add a step to the login process.

maybe he wanted to say that malevolent people have always enough skills to stole your password, even if you have a master password like firefox.

This is really, really narrowminded.

You're thinking of security in the sense of some hacker or someone who has technical abilities.

What about the jealous ex-bf? He asked to use the gf's computer when they were dating, easily grabbed ALL of her password info and now she has to change everything when they break up. You're giving complete technophiles the ability to nab passwords. The question is WHY - what utility is there to make these show up in plain text over just prompting for a master password? What's the use case that you NEED to make these visible so easily?

It's also a terrible, terrible excuse to say 'well, there are other ways to get that info so our security flaw isn't an issue since it's already trivial'.

The fact of the matter is that you should at the very least require the master password to make these other passwords visible. There should be SOME authentication being done here.

What would this conversation be like if we were talking about gmail.com? You think it'd be OK to show in plan text a person's gmail password in the Settings page. I mean, if you logged in then of course you are the only person who should be looking at it.

Let us use Google's web approach to various services to better explain this. When I login to my gmail, and open up google docs, or youtube on a different tab, I am logged in by default. However, when I go to edit my Google Account Settings, I am again prompted for a password, right?

If what you said about studying threat models and securing your computers and users accounts before handing over the system to friends or family is true and valid, why am I being asked a password to edit my Google Account settings. By extension of your claim, I should never have been handing over my system with a logged in user to anybody else. And definitely, the other claim that providing an extra layer of security is a false pretense must be valid in that Google is just providing us a false pretense of security when we want to edit our Google Account Settings which it does not require when we try to edit settings of the individual services?

Why is this distinction between Google's web services and your browser security?

I don't think that saying if someone has access to your computer then you're screwed anyway is really an excuse.

You talk about lulling users into a false sense of security but do you have any idea how many Chrome users assume that their saved passwords can't just be viewed in plain text with a couple of clicks? I had no idea until I read Elliott's article and I immediately turned the feature off and deleted all my saved passwords.

If a technical person with a bit of knowledge and a few minutes has access to your computer then yes, you're a bit screwed.

If the broadband engineer comes round to investigate your connectivity issues and you (sensibly) watch over their shoulder while they fiddle with your browser settings, looking away for 10 seconds shouldn't result in them having ALL your passwords.

It's about ease & simplicity of breaching the "security" for non-technical people as well as techies.

Forgive me for not looking at Chrome's source code on this, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that Chrome doesn't encrypt the passwords on the disk. You can easily do better than this while maintaining all of your current functionality.

On my system, I have installed scrypt and use it as a password management tool. When I need a password, I simply run a shell script I created, type my master password, and the password I'm searching for is placed in my clipboard.

Sure, I could write an extension to do this and I really should be concerned with the security of the clipboard implementation... but, those are fairly trivial (I do flush my clipboard buffer when I'm done).

This would be a simple solution for Chrome, actually. You already have all of the works for managing passwords implemented. All you need to do is add in the decryption process and simply not log the master password.

In this way, even the root user wouldn't have access to a user's passwords (as is currently the case with Chrome).

Apparently, Chrome does encrypt passwords, using the Windows cryptography APIs: http://raidersec.blogspot.in/2013/06/how-browsers-store-your...

It's not secure against any attacks running under the user, though.

I would worry that after the copy and paste into the browser, copies of the password are found decrypted all over the place in RAM, and then if you don't have whole disc encryption it may creep in plain-text into swap.

justin: other applications offer an added layer of security through a master password, which chrome does not, are you saying that this has 0 affect of the level of security surrounding the stored passwords?

Or are you saying chrome(ium?) uses the same technique but hidden to the user?

Not just other applications - MacOS's own Keychain application requires the user to re-enter their login password in order to see passwords that were saved in their user keychain. This is to ensure that while you might be able to make use of those passwords if you have physical access, you won't be able to easily copy them off somewhere else.

Please Justin, explain the real reason that Chrome does this, or admit that it's a bug and get it fixed. The reasons you mention are just stupid.

There is a simple fix for this and FireFox uses it. Simply, allow users to create a master password to view stored passwords. They don't need to be asked to enter it every time they log into sites so the ease of use remains. But, if a stranger gets a hold of their machine, they will be one giant step farther from retrieving their passcodes.

PS. This was always an issue with Chrome, and it is why I don't use Chrome on my mobile machine. Safari has a similar problem. So I recommend 1Password for mobile computing if those are your browsers of choice.

May I ask what similar problem Safari has?

As far as I know, Safari uses OS X’s keychain which means you practically have a master password (very likely your user account password, although you could use a different keychain). If I try to retrieve a password (either through Keychain Access or Safari’s Preferences) I get asked for my “master password”.

How does palming the problem off onto the OS help? At least the OS provides the choice to lock/leave open.

Smacks of laziness, especially in a world where it often takes very little to deter people.

That's not a good idea, delegating, and when the OS gets compromised, the browser is to blame.

>> it's all just theater and won't actually stop anyone willing to invest minimal effort. <<

So are all the policies and procedures of the TSA, if not the entire agency itself, but nobody is suggesting that making it a tiny bit harder to get weapons onto planes isn't a worthwhile goal. We argue over implementation details.

I read in a Tom Peters book years ago that if a flyer sees a coffee-stained tray table, they assume the airline doesn't maintain its aircraft. That's an utterly irrational conclusion -- and a typically human one. The solution is trivial: clean the tray tables! SO back to software.

Make it a tiny bit harder for ANY user to view the plain-text versions of the passwords stored in a web browser.

>> it's all just theater and won't actually stop anyone willing to invest minimal effort.

> So are all the policies and procedures of the TSA, if not the entire agency itself, but nobody is suggesting that making it a tiny bit harder to get weapons onto planes isn't a worthwhile goal.

Very large number of people have been, in fact, suggesting since day one of the TSA that the restrictions imposed on travel in the name of advancing security theater are not worth the costs that come with them, in some cases in some states (particularly Texas, but I think other states had started the process) going so far as moving to criminalize some of the TSA actions, until the TSA escalated by threatening to retaliate against Texas (who was the State where this had progressed farthest in the legislature) by shutting down all commercial air travel in/to/from the State if the bill was passed.

So, the basic premise of the analogy you are trying to use here is rather critically flawed.

A solid argument if the average Chrome user is a regular HN reader.

> It matters that you don't seem to understand the threat model here.

Respectfully, a fairly common real world circumstance under which this is exactly the wrong choice was described, then ignored.

In response we got "you don't get it, we're staying where we are."

Is it possible that the reason people think you're doing the wrong thing is that you have made literally no attempt whatsoever to explain why you're flying against the best practices everyone else uses?

Saying "we have data" doesn't count, because we didn't see it, and everyone says that while justifying obviously incorrect stuff. I've had people mail my password back to me plaintext then insist that because they're (random important sounding thing) I should just trust their judgment.

And yes, this includes directors of security at first class software organizations with backgrounds in research security and the CIA.

Even if it turned out that you were correct, your current standoffish non-explanation is directly and severely undermining our trust in you. Do you just not care?

Sometimes you're a lot better off explaining than saying "you're too naive to understand."

.

> I've enumerated this multiple times now

Where?

.

> so I'm not sure how else to explain it

You give the very strong impression that you believe that saying "you're an amateur and we have data" is a kind of an explanation.

.

> The simple fact is that you need to lock your user account

"The simple fact is that you need to secure your server, and if you don't do that it doesn't matter that you salt and hash your passwords, and if you do do that then you don't need to salt and hash your passwords."

Yes, that's cute, LinkedIn. Back here in the real world, multiple layers of redundant, superficially weak, superficially unnecessary security have actual productive results.

.

> nothing else really matters because it's all just theater

The only theater I see here is "I've enumerated this and I don't know how else to explain it."

Unless you're talking about some other site, you haven't explained it at all, and what you're really saying is "I don't know how to explain it."

Maybe hire a communications person. You're making what appear to be by all basic security books and protocols dire security errors, then saying "I have data to support this decision and you're too dumb to understand what's going on."

Really?

Try us, sir. Closing the door in our faces is not a form of doing a good job here. If you're going to take liberties with our data, please be willing to give at least one good faith attempt to explain yourself. It's not a lot to ask.

.

> won't actually stop anyone willing to invest minimal effort.

I think you've confused wanting to stop blackhats with wanting to stop real world situations.

An angry significant other can pull this off. You're not just opening the door; you're opening it ridiculously wide, to the point that the average non-technical user can figure out how to penetrate your "security."

And then you're justifying it in terms of not wanting, through an unknown mechanism, to justify bad behavior, by leaving a vulnerability few technical people know about in place.

I just don't know how to respond to this.

Please share the data you keep talking about. The reason you don't know how to explain this better is that you haven't even begun to try.

Saying "I'm right and you're an outsider" isn't an explanation. It's a dodge.

You're assuming your users will go to that place, see their passwords are showing and say to themselves, 'ok, this stuff isn't secure, I better be careful'. But that doesn't happen. People don't generally go there. They don't know about it. But someone else, using their computer, might know about it, or might stumble upon it. If you stop this happening, people aren't going to be lulled into a false sense of security, as you suggest. They aren't even going to know it happened. But their passwords will be more secure against casual discovery.

Give a knowledgeable person physical access to a computer, and all of the clear text views in the browser do not matter. Just crack the user's password and you have access to any stored passwords. The password paradigm is not perfect. There is no perfect solution. Personally I like being able to check passwords easily, while being intelligent enough to put barriers in the path of the 'general snooper.'

> Give a knowledgeable person physical access to a computer

Or in this case, give anyone physical access to your computer, and they have all of your passwords.

Security through obscurity is not security, but it still has practical uses. You could say that hiding the passwords behind the few clicks it takes is not real security, but it's still more useful than having the passwords displayed plaintext on a sidebar at all times.

You sound like an angry OS X / iOS developer trying to make a name for himself. This is old news, and I find it odd how you've decided to focus all of the attention on Chrome even though other browsers operate in a similar way. And frankly, if you’re dumb enough to let someone use your computer, after you've knowingly saved your passwords on it, you deserved to get hacked. Operating system profiles should be common knowledge by now.