> I know this isn't exactly the best forum, but I'm not really sure what 
> is.  I'm working on a "secure" shell (secure in quotes because nothing 
> really is 100% secure)

You might want to look into ssh--anything where you're entering
passwords that go in plaintext across a network is highly vulnerable--
no matter how many passwords you have.

> students breaking into other students' accounts and the fact that the 
> password file is readable by anyone.

What system are you guys using?

> The problem is, I can't figure out how to get Telnet to stop echoing 
> characters.

What are you trying to do?  If you're trying to turn off echo on a tty
stream under Unix, pick up a book on Unix programming and look for info
on termios.  You could also take a look at the login/passwd source code.
It's really not the job of telnet to do any echo on/off.

-allen

-- 
Allen Briggs - end killing - allen.briggs@bev.net ** MacBSD == NetBSD/mac68k **
   Where does all my time go?  <a href="http://www.netbsd.org/">Guess.</a>