What is the point of the NM keyring?

[Timothy Murphy]

Marcelo Magno T. Sales wrote:

>> Some kind soul pointed out that one could get rid
>> of the demand by NM for a keyring password
>> by deleting .gnome2/keyrings/default.keyring
>> and then giving an empty password when requested.
>>
>> But that made me wonder what possible point
>> the keyring password could have?
>> Is it intended as some kind of security device?
>> As far as I can see, you have to be logged in to run NM,
>> and if you are logged in you can delete this file.
>>
>> I might say the same about the KDE wallet system.
>> How does this make one's part of the system more secure,
>> since it is open to you to change the wallet password,
>> or even to make it empty?
> 
> Don't know about gnome keyring, but in KWallet you can change a wallet's
> password only if you know the previous one. If you delete the default
> wallet you can choose whatever password you like when it's recreated, of
> course. But if you do delete one of the wallets, then you loose all
> passwords stored in it, so I would say they are indeed protected.
> There's no way of recovering the passwords stored in a wallet without
> knowing the wallet's password.
> I believe gnome keyring behaves the same way.
...
> The purpose of wallets and keyrings is to make your life easier by
> having to remember just one password, the one that opens your wallet.
> All the others can be securely stored in the wallet. However, if you
> loose the wallet's password, then you loose all passwords stored in it.

Thanks, I guess that makes quite a lot of sense.

Actually, I use the same password for everything,
as my great fear is I will forget some password and never be able
to use kmail or whatever again.
So the KDE wallet system is not really much use for me.