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Ken Thompson's Unix Password

leahneukirchen.org

121–130 of 665 posts

Re: Ken Thompson's Unix Password

#122

I use a diceware[0] passphrase for my Keepass database. I was inspired heavily by XKCD comic 936[1]. My only issue with password managers is that they are a single point of failure and are juicy targets for hackers, so I usually vet them and audit them thoroughly before I use them. I am one of those rare people that actually looks at the source code of password managers to look for flaws in the implementation (I some…

So you're saying that if I get access to your current keyboard or any of your former ones, I can get all of the keys used in typing your master password just by looking at the wear pattern? Hey, thanks for the tip!

Re: Ken Thompson's Unix Password

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pedantry might as well be correct: calling q2-q4 "the beginning of a closed game" hides the fact that it's also the beginning of many other validated openings: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._d4 Advancing the queen's pawn 2 squares is a very common first move in chess at all levels. It's disingenuous to call this the beginning of any one of the specific possible openings in the above list.

And calling "It was the best of times" the beginning of a famous Dickens quote hides the fact that it's also the beginning of many other valid English sentences, I suppose. There is nothing incorrect about the article's statement.

Context is everything, and I think your example only highlights how unhelpful it is to specify that q2-q4 is the beginning of the closed game.

I think most English speakers would agree that Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities is a notable outlier of what is expected after "It was the best of times." That's the exact work of literature that popularized the phrase.

By contrast, mention q2-q4 to any "chess speaker" and they won't be specifically prompted to think of the closed game at all.

Re: Ken Thompson's Unix Password

#124

> (those familiar know the hash-rate fluctuates and slows down towards the end) Could someone explain this to me, why does it slow down towards the end?

I don't know for sure, but these Radeon GPUs are power hungry and hot. It could be just that after multiple days the entire computer is heat soaked and goes through more thermal throttling than even the "steady state" GPU tests that most gamers do (a few hours).

It might also be cruft building up over time with small memory leaks or imperfect memory management.

Re: Ken Thompson's Unix Password

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the beginning of the closed game, which is what the article says. Seems like a vacuous nitpick.

Closed game is 1. d4 d5. There are quite a few opening lines that start with 1. d4, but do not continue into the closed game.

Which does not change the fact that 1. d4 is the beginning of the closed game.

Re: Ken Thompson's Unix Password

#127
post #91
post #63

This bothers me because I prefer to use slightly embarrassing passphrases. I do that because it creates a secondary incentive not to disclose them.

Does that mean that it is embarrassing and can be tied to you or that it is just embarrassing to say? If the first, then wouldn't you risk being pwned and having that used against you?

I worked with someone who had to share a password to solve a major outage. (Yes, I know...)

It was a rude comment about a colleague.

Re: Ken Thompson's Unix Password

#128

> (those familiar know the hash-rate fluctuates and slows down towards the end) Could someone explain this to me, why does it slow down towards the end?

I don't know for sure, but these Radeon GPUs are power hungry and hot. It could be just that after multiple days the entire computer is heat soaked and goes through more thermal throttling than even the "steady state" GPU tests that most gamers do (a few hours). It might also be cruft building up over time with small memory leaks or imperfect memory management.

This is what I thought too, the heat simply becomes overwhelming and the unit has to underclock to prevent melting.

Re: Ken Thompson's Unix Password

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And calling "It was the best of times" the beginning of a famous Dickens quote hides the fact that it's also the beginning of many other valid English sentences, I suppose. There is nothing incorrect about the article's statement.

Context is everything, and I think your example only highlights how unhelpful it is to specify that q2-q4 is the beginning of the closed game. I think most English speakers would agree that Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities is a notable outlier of what is expected after "It was the best of times." That's the exact work of literature that popularized the phrase. By contrast, mention q2-q4 to any "chess speaker" and they w…

Yeah that's bullshit. If you tell a chess player 1.d4 then d5 is going to be one of the first things that comes to mind. Even if they prefer a different response, like Nf6, d5 is certainly going to be prompted.

Re: Ken Thompson's Unix Password

#130
post #23

I'm shocked at how well the old hashing stood up; sure, it's totally crackable today, but a well-picked password still took 4+ days to crack on modern hardware, which is remarkable. (Granted, it doesn't sound like they did anything fancy like throwing a hundred cloud instances at it or something; I'm not saying you should use DES today:) )

30 years ago I cracked everyone’s Unix password on an old Sun computer. It didn’t take long because everyone had a password that was in the dictionary. Needless to say, people were not happy with the messenger.

Ah, I remember doing that. Not quite 30 years ago, but jeez, getting close. Funny, it helped me remember some of the professor's wives names, and for some reason I can remember the husband-hunting Italian lady's password (amici) while I've forgotten both her name, her thesis project and everything else about her.

It was actually decently well received by the department head; he sent out a memo to the staff to not use their wives names for emails and looked like an early computer security innovator in the physics department.

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