Comment 25 for bug 276384

The implication of setting up thinkfinger for login is a combination of security and convenience; for instance, I set up thinkfinger because I have a tablet, and it is convenient for me to leave the tablet in tablet configuration around 80% of the time, not needing the keyboard, but it is decidedly more secure than autologin, which would accomplish the same convenience.

As it stands, if people want to maintain the semi-secure convenience of thinkfinger, the suggested solution across the webz is to create an empty keyring password; which is obviously a very bad idea.

I believe this is a bug, in that from the user facing side, the keyring manager shouldn't be seen. In an 'Ideal World(tm)', the keyring manager would accept a valid PAM authentication as being satisfactory.

However it could be implemented, it would pose an increased security risk, as the access vectors to the keyring are being opened up, so I'd imagine that the only practicable way of doing this would be to have an option in the keyring store (a la the change password window) that states "Allow transparent login with PAM data" or something similar.

This would increase the convenience for those thinkfinger users who care primarily about security, increase security for those thinkfinger users who care primarily about convenience, and since it would be an opt-in, would pose no/little risk to non-thinkfinger users.