

Ask HN: Does Namecheap store passwords in clear text? - sep

a few weeks ago I had problems accessing some features on namecheap.com, so I turned to their online support. After failing to resolve the issue, the support guy suggested doing what I needed for me.<p>To do that he said he needed the first 3 characters of my password. I asked if he were able to see my password, and he replied that he couldn't, and that he would feed those characters to a system that would conduct a check.<p>His answer wasn't really convincing, but as I needed these things done quickly (and the password was unique to that account), I played along, and since forgot all about it.<p>I would like to know, is there any way they're not storing passwords as clear text?<p>EDIT: he asked for the first 3 chars but actually claimed that any 3 would do. It makes sense (as suggested below), that they store hash of the first 3, and that he just didn't know what he was talking about.
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wwortiz
They could be storing a hash of the first three characters just to check for
this.

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sep
Actually, he did ask for the first 3 chars, but also claimed that any 3 would
do. Your idea still seems very reasonable to me, if I just assume he was
speculating about the inner workings.

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LiveTheDream
namecheap support has told me (via the live chat) they have no option to view
passwords.

