java - String to asterisk, masking password

Question

I'm creating this simple login code for an ATM machine. You enter username and password and you logs in, that works just great. Since I'm not connecting to a database or an external text file and I've just got 1 user, it's just written plainly in the Java code. But when you enter the password "p4ss" I want it to be masked, so instead of seing it on the screen while typing you should see "* * * *" or " " just blank (Like when you enter pass on Linux).

Currently my code looks like this:

    String user;
    String pass;            
    System.out.print("User: ");
    user = Keyboard.readString();
    System.out.print("Pass: ");
    pass = Keyboard.readString();

    if ((user.equals("Admin")) && (pass.equals("p4ss")))            
    {       
        menu();      
    }    
    else
    {       
        out.println("Wrong username or password.");
    }

Would appreciate any help I could get.

Answer 1

Michael, have a look at the description on Sun's website: https://web.archive.org/web/20120214061606/http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Security/pwordmask

Or, if you're using Java 5 or newer, you can use this: How to mask a password in Java 5?