PasswordSafe accesses the Internet??

Before I start, how many of you loyal readers out there use or have used PasswordSafe? If you would, leave me a comment, because I'm curious.

Anyway, I just got an email from a PasswordSafe user that said it was connecting to the internet every time he saved his data file. I'm not a devious type, and the codebase has been checked over by at least two or three other people (quite possibly many more), and one even took the time to rewrite some chunks of it to be more efficient and look prettier. So I'm quite confident that there isn't any malicious code lurking around anywhere.

However, his comments concerned me, because that's some blatantly suspicious behaviour for security-related software to be exhibiting. One common use for PasswordSafe (from talking to various users) is to store the data file at a shared location (and possibly even the actual binaries), where all parties that need access can get it without having to keep files synchronized in multiple places. I suspect this is what's happening, but I wanted to ask if anyone else has seen this sort of behaviour?

I've also just pushed a new update that has no functional changes, just a couple little tweaks to the documentation. It can be downloaded at http://www.barneyb.com/go/ps_download.

Follow Up:
After doing some more testing (both myself and the guy who sent me the email), it appears to be the XML-based bean serializer that PasswordSafe uses that is causing the internet lookup. Presumably this is to find a remote XML Schema or something.

2 responses to “PasswordSafe accesses the Internet??”

  1. Jan-Uwe Finck

    I use it, but think about moving back to PassSafe or something else, because I have too much passwords now, and could use something like folders.

    Is the PasswordSafe still maintained at all?
    I couldn't find a recent version, nor a download anymore..

    Best regards,
    Jan-uwe