Of course, once you do understand that it's just a password prompt, it's great. Completely confuses the hell out of any shoulder surfers, who will for sure think it's a confusing puzzle, and eventually they will get rate limited.
^1: Example of it in use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvT44BSp3Uc
> That way you can be certain whether or not you entered a character
They can also count the number of keystrokes they heard.
I've seen this demonstrated, using "Cherry" type keyswitches, with about a 75% success rate.
I also knew an old guy who could tell what an ASR33 or Creed teleprinter was printing just by the sound, with "good enough" accuracy, and copy RTTY by ear with "good enough" accuracy.
He didn't really talk about his time in the Royal Signals in the 50s and 60s very much.