Why don't keyboards have a password key?

Question

It happens to me sometimes that I type in my password when the terminal is not listening for a password, and so what I type appears in clear text on the screen.Hence my question: why don't keyboards have a password key which must be pressed before entering a password, so the OS can take an appropriate action?

Finnucane · Accepted Answer

Wouldn't it still then be incumbent on the user to remember to use the key to tell the os a password was on its way? It wouldn't eliminate having a brain fart and accidentally typing your password in the clear.

PaulHoule · Answer

Back in the day (Windows NT 3.1) Microsoft made you hit ctrl-alt-del before entering your password, which only the OS could trap, so you knew you weren&rsquo;t getting phished. They gave up on this.

necovek · Answer

What scenario would you like to be protected against? If someone can observe/record your screen, they can likely observe/record you typing it in too. For observation only, a complex password usually suffices.
So, you need an extra step to stop you from getting your password into files like .bash_history and from submitting it inside auto-submit search forms (eg. Google Search or any autofill field).
For the former (or anything that doesn't auto-transmit), don't press enter.
The latter is a newish usecase that I am sure we can fix in a better way (eg. attempting to type any password from your keyring into non-password field could delay that until confirmation is given).
If you wish, you can always write a program that pops a password box on your assigned key, and then emulates keypresses. You'd similarly catch your passwords with a keylogger-like app that integrates with your keyring.
TL;DR — because it's not a big deal, except for some new usecases, and it wouldn't be a great solution.

theandrewbailey · Answer

It would make a computer harder to use. Grandma would be pretty annoyed when Facebook doesn't accept her password, when all she wants to do is see pictures of the grandkids.