From nabble.30.miller_2555 at spamgourmet.com  Sat Jun 13 00:08:40 2009
From: nabble.30.miller_2555 at spamgourmet.com (miller_2555)
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:08:40 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Rd]  Masked user input
Message-ID: <24005544.post@talk.nabble.com>


Hi - 

   I'm creating a package of database tools. A function in the package
requires the username and password as input to the function in order to
initially connect to the target database(s). Of course, this poses a
significant security issue given the possible retention of the function
statement in cleartext. I did not readily encounter a package meant to mask
input from the user nor do I know of any method to prevent sensitive
information from appearing on-screen or from logging in the command history
of a running R session. While using the --vanilla option when starting R
helps with permanent logging of sensitive information, it is not always
preferable to run R with special flags.  Is any solution available to
prevent the logging/ display of user input. Obviously, hard-coding the
sensitive information is not an option. 

Note: I currently use the following (summarized) convention:

myloginfunction <- function(uname = readline("Enter username") , passwd =
readline("Enter password")) { print(c(uname,passwd)); };

However, the readline function prints the response on-screen. 



Thanks!

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[Rd] Masked user input
miller_2555