>> it's all just theater and won't actually stop anyone willing to invest minimal effort. <<

So are all the policies and procedures of the TSA, if not the entire agency itself, but nobody is suggesting that making it a tiny bit harder to get weapons onto planes isn't a worthwhile goal. We argue over implementation details.

I read in a Tom Peters book years ago that if a flyer sees a coffee-stained tray table, they assume the airline doesn't maintain its aircraft. That's an utterly irrational conclusion -- and a typically human one. The solution is trivial: clean the tray tables! SO back to software.

Make it a tiny bit harder for ANY user to view the plain-text versions of the passwords stored in a web browser.

>> it's all just theater and won't actually stop anyone willing to invest minimal effort.

> So are all the policies and procedures of the TSA, if not the entire agency itself, but nobody is suggesting that making it a tiny bit harder to get weapons onto planes isn't a worthwhile goal.

Very large number of people have been, in fact, suggesting since day one of the TSA that the restrictions imposed on travel in the name of advancing security theater are not worth the costs that come with them, in some cases in some states (particularly Texas, but I think other states had started the process) going so far as moving to criminalize some of the TSA actions, until the TSA escalated by threatening to retaliate against Texas (who was the State where this had progressed farthest in the legislature) by shutting down all commercial air travel in/to/from the State if the bill was passed.

So, the basic premise of the analogy you are trying to use here is rather critically flawed.