String to asterisk, masking password

Question

I'm creating this simple login code for an ATM machine. You enter username and password and you logs in, that works just great. Since I'm not connecting to a database or an external text file and I've just got 1 user, it's just written plainly in the Java code. But when you enter the password "p4ss" I want it to be masked, so instead of seing it on the screen while typing you should see "* * * *" or " " just blank (Like when you enter pass on Linux).

Currently my code looks like this:

    String user;
    String pass;            
    System.out.print("User: ");
    user = Keyboard.readString();
    System.out.print("Pass: ");
    pass = Keyboard.readString();

    if ((user.equals("Admin")) && (pass.equals("p4ss")))            
    {       
        menu();      
    }    
    else
    {       
        out.println("Wrong username or password.");
    }

Would appreciate any help I could get.

What is the Keyboard class here? If you're writing code for an ATM, why on earth are you using System.out? — Jon Skeet, Oct 07 '11 at 13:01
Stackoverflow has built-in security, when you type p4ss all I see is **** — JRL, Oct 07 '11 at 13:01
Well it's just a login page, the keyboard class is so I can input the text. The system out is so I can see the output on the screen. — Michael, Oct 07 '11 at 13:05
Possible duplicate of [How to mask a password in Java 5?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1108937/how-to-mask-a-password-in-java-5) — jww, Oct 05 '14 at 03:09

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:50

2

Michael, have a look at the description on Sun's website: https://web.archive.org/web/20120214061606/http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Security/pwordmask

Or, if you're using Java 5 or newer, you can use this: How to mask a password in Java 5?

edited May 23 '17 at 11:50

Community

1
1

answered Oct 07 '11 at 13:02

Pieter

3,339
5
30
63

Paul Cager · Answer 2 · 2011-10-07T13:48:29.090

1

I assume this is a simulated ATM...

Dev has pointed out that password masking on the console is supported out of the box, so you can use that. However for anything but the most trivial of IO you'd be better off using Swing or a "curses-like" library:

edited Oct 07 '11 at 13:48

answered Oct 07 '11 at 13:05

Paul Cager

1,910
14
21

Password masking is supported out of the box in JavaSE 6 or newer as indicated in my answer. – Dev Oct 07 '11 at 13:22

Ernest Friedman-Hill · Answer 3 · 2011-10-07T13:25:14.150

0

There's a special method Console.readPassword() for doing this, introduced in Java 6. You obviously couldn't run code like this on a real ATM, though! Swing has JPasswordField which lets you do this kind of masking in a GUI, and one could imagine a Swing-based ATM window.

edited Oct 07 '11 at 13:25

answered Oct 07 '11 at 13:02

Ernest Friedman-Hill

80,601
10
150
186

The first part is incorrect, you can mask a password on the console in Java6 or newer. – Dev Oct 07 '11 at 13:20

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 07 '11 at 13:20

0

If you have JavaSE 6 or newer you can use Console.readPassword()

answered Oct 07 '11 at 13:20

Dev

11,919
3
40
53

String to asterisk, masking password

4 Answers4

Linked