SQL Antipatterns, Volume 1

Legitimate Uses of the Antipattern

Your application may need to use a password to access another third-party service—that is, your application can be a client. In this case, you must store that password in a readable format. Preferably, you use some encoding that your application can reverse, instead of using plain text in the database.

You can make a distinction between identification and authentication. A user can identify themself as anyone they want, but authentication is proving they are who they say they are. Passwords are the most common way of doing this.

If you can’t enforce security strong enough to defeat skilled and determined attackers, then you effectively have an identification mechanism but not a reliable authentication mechanism. ...