Python supports a fxn for the password input use-case:
http://docs.python.org/py3k/library/getpass.html?highlight=password

Equivalent of that would satisfy me.

You can do the equivalent on unixy systems this way, but, alas, doesn't work
on Windows, which many of our CLI script users have:


            $stty = `stty -g`;
            system("stty -echo");
            $input = trim(fgets(STDIN));
            system("stty $stty");

This seems beyond what we should be supporting in the core of PHP. I am sure 
there are ways of doing this on Windows. A quick search gets me the 
ScriptPW.Password component. It should be easy enough to trigger that via the 
COM extension.

eg.

$pwd = new Com('ScriptPW.Password');