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Xkcd: Encryptic

xkcd.com

11–20 of 64 posts

Re: Xkcd: Encryptic

#11
post #3

Anyone care to explain the DES misuse to laypeople? And why do some passwords have a salt(?) and some don't?

"why do some passwords have a salt(?) and some don't?"

I'm not sure if this is the case, but sometimes this has to do with 'backwards compatibility'. I've seen databases where some passwords where MD5, some SHA1, some Bcrypt and so on. The login page then will do something like:

  if(checkBcrypt(password)) {
    login();
  } else if(checkSha1(password) || checkMd5(password)) {
    updateDbPassword(password);
    login();
  } else {
    loginError();
  }

Re: Xkcd: Encryptic

#12
post #2

Image tooltip text made me laugh: >>It was bound to happen eventually. This data theft will enable almost limitless [xkcd.com/792]-style password reuse attacks in the coming weeks. There's only one group that comes out of this looking smart: Everyone who pirated Photoshop. [xkcd.com/792]: http://xkcd.com/792/

He forgot users of The Gimp ;-).

Re: Xkcd: Encryptic

#13
post #6
post #2

Image tooltip text made me laugh: >>It was bound to happen eventually. This data theft will enable almost limitless [xkcd.com/792]-style password reuse attacks in the coming weeks. There's only one group that comes out of this looking smart: Everyone who pirated Photoshop. [xkcd.com/792]: http://xkcd.com/792/

He missed a group of people: any designer who did not entrust their entire professional workflow to a single, for-profit company whose best interests are in moving your workflow in ways that benefit the company over the user. Being dependent on something like Photoshop for your only income is a terrible position to be in, yet it is how I'd describe most designers today.

Not being able to use CMYK is a terrible perspective if you ever get a chance of printing something.

Re: Xkcd: Encryptic

#14
post #12
post #2

Image tooltip text made me laugh: >>It was bound to happen eventually. This data theft will enable almost limitless [xkcd.com/792]-style password reuse attacks in the coming weeks. There's only one group that comes out of this looking smart: Everyone who pirated Photoshop. [xkcd.com/792]: http://xkcd.com/792/

He forgot users of The Gimp ;-).

I don't think they look smart at all ;) /s

Re: Xkcd: Encryptic

#18
post #10

Is there a website out there that will tell you how many times your password has been used based on this database of the 153millions accounts?

To make it searchable on your password, someone would have to go through the Adobe set and use the hints to manually figure out the clear text form. Off hand, it's hard to see how posting that on the web could be done responsibly.

But until someone does, you could just Google "most common passwords" and if yours is in the set, you win!

Re: Xkcd: Encryptic

#19

What do the boxes on the right represent? St.peter St.peter St.peter1 password password1 password57 seem to be the first few if I understand correctly.

I was thinking that St.peter would have to be peter (NAME1) but then that wouldn't be enough to be it's own block. I'm guessing the split boxes [ ][ ][ ] are characters and the long [\t] are for numbers.

Re: Xkcd: Encryptic

#20
post #10

Is there a website out there that will tell you how many times your password has been used based on this database of the 153millions accounts?

To make it searchable on your password, someone would have to go through the Adobe set and use the hints to manually figure out the clear text form. Off hand, it's hard to see how posting that on the web could be done responsibly. But until someone does, you could just Google "most common passwords" and if yours is in the set, you win!

It is not one of the common ones but I wonder if someone used it and just put it in as a clue which would mean that it's completely compromised...
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