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Password Algorithms

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41–50 of 114 posts

Re: Password Algorithms

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, our HR system had a following requirement: - password must be between 7 and 8 characters long - has to include one number - has to include one of the following: $#!*, no other special characters are allowed It was so horrendously bad it's not even funny.

> password must be between 7 and 8 characters long How do you enter a fractional character?

If there is a way, UTF-8 probably does it, incorrectly.

Re: Password Algorithms

#43
post #8
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use a password manager and generate 30-ish character long passwords Do note that you don't need anything more than 22 random mixed-case letters & digits: 26 lower-case letters plus 26 upper-case letters plus ten digits is 62, and 62²² ≈ 2¹²⁸. Completely agree re. the ineptitude of the developers of sites that try to limit one to less than that.

diceware.com

Diceware encourages reuse of a single password on multiple sites. It's also much more time consuming than just clicking the "randomly generate password" button and having it spit out a 30 char password. That, and a randomly generated password of, say, 16 chars is much much more secure than a diceware generated password of 4 or 5 words, IIRC. And I'd still need a password manager, because reusing passwords on different sites / accounts is a big no-no.

Re: Password Algorithms

#44
If you're going to use an algorithm (which seems like a bad idea), wouldn't it be safer to keep a large secret key and then hmac or hash(key + service name) as your password?

Re: Password Algorithms

#45

The problem is passwords, so long as we have passwords we are going to keep talking about password algorithms, password managers, password strength, password requirements, lost passwords, stolen passwords, phished passwords, forgotten passwords, expired passwords and all that crap. My startup is working on killing the password. What if we don't need passwords EVER? No need to argue about algorithm, strength, reset, l…

>My startup is working on killing the password.

Good luck with legacy systems. Bad passwords will be around forever because of ancient software.

Oh, and

https://xkcd.com/927/

Re: Password Algorithms

#46
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not something like LastPass Why? Friends have found LastPass to be pretty reliable and user friendly so far.

Among other things, they apparently use webpage encryption (their technology page indicates that AES is implemented in JavaScript for their website), which means that they have the ability to target any user at any point in time. Also, they're proprietary software. Password security is too important to entrust to proprietary software.

When talking about Password Managers (and security in general), I think it's important to keep your threat model in mind.

Is LastPass going to protect you against sophisticated State, or even potentially Corporate attackers? Maybe not. Will it protect you against random hacks and insecure sites better than just reusing the same password that you can remember? Yes.

I generally agree though that this is an area where open source software is preferable. I'm also really intrigued by the work Keybase is doing and hope that it might spur some interesting solutions for web auth as well.

Re: Password Algorithms

#47
post #6

The author recommends using a password algorithm that you can mentally process and then storing the results in a password manager. If you're going to store them why not let the password manager generate the pass for you?

My guess is that the intent is that the passwords would be recoverable by you without the aid of a password manager, but that the relative convenience of a password manager still adds benefits (e.g. behaviourally: guiding you away from any potential tendency to opt for "simpler" passwords out of laziness)

> that the passwords would be recoverable by you

Just click "Forgot password"?

Re: Password Algorithms

#48
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

diceware.com

This says that "alger klm curry blond puck" is easy to remember. I would forget that very quickly.

Try to make a (short) story/idea connecting those random words. Stories, something with sense and meaning, are easier to remember. correct horse battery staple is the usual example about this.

Re: Password Algorithms

#49

The problem is passwords, so long as we have passwords we are going to keep talking about password algorithms, password managers, password strength, password requirements, lost passwords, stolen passwords, phished passwords, forgotten passwords, expired passwords and all that crap. My startup is working on killing the password. What if we don't need passwords EVER? No need to argue about algorithm, strength, reset, l…

Can you elaborate a bit? I'm asking because as a bit of security aficionado, I've yet to see a scheme that's better than passwords + 2FA.

Re: Password Algorithms

#50
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This says that "alger klm curry blond puck" is easy to remember. I would forget that very quickly.

Yeah, the default word list is pretty terrible. Try one of the ones from the EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/new-wordlists-random-p...

ugh, the actual wordlist is a single hyperlinked sentence in the center of a thousand word essay.

Here's a direct link: https://www.eff.org/files/2016/07/18/eff_large_wordlist.txt

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