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Let them paste passwords

ncsc.gov.uk

301–310 of 376 posts

Re: Let them paste passwords

#301

Of course it reduces security. It makes you resort to either 1.) typing it out manually while you can't see if you made a mistake 2.) using developer tools to set the 'value' attribute directly "SPP" discourages use of a password manager. End of story. I also see this pattern used on banking websites for inputs like an account number. This drives me crazy as well for the same reason. The computer can get it right mor…

If you want to see incompetence, the California DMV doesn't allow copy/paste AND it asks for not two, not three, but SIX personal security questions.

Oh, and if you forget your login/pass/security-answers, don't worry, you can just re-register your account with the same username as before, with all new password, security questions and answers.

Re: Let them paste passwords

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strictly speaking, the dot in the latter space isn't actually necessary. It needs to be a resolvable domain, but if you bought a TLD you could be "name@tld"

I don't think an @domain is required if it's an email address on the same mail server.

[deleted]

Re: Let them paste passwords

#303
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if you can remember your password, its probably too weak As XKCD famously pointed out[0], Diceware[1]-style pass phrases can be both secure and memorable. XKCD's four word example isn't secure when fast brute-force attacks are feasible, but eight words is still easily memorable and secure enough for anything. The important point here is that "random words" really does mean "random", i.e. not picked by a human. [0] h…

Just to add to the above comment, a diceware passphrase is MUCH harder to break than most people realize. For example, compare the possible number of combinations: Diceware, 6 words 2.2 x 10^23 Diceware, 5 words 2.8 x 10^19 Diceware, 4 words 3.6 x 10^15 a-zA-Z0-9, symbols, 10 4.3 x 10^19 a-zA-Z0-9, 10char 8.4 x 10^17 a-zA-Z0-9, 8char 2.2 x 10^15 A 6 word diceware phrase has 100 million more combinations than the 8 ch…

This kind of assumes that you're trying to crack a password with the operating assumption that words are indeed not used, that every character is random, and that you wouldn't use some sort of word library to construct passwords.

Re: Let them paste passwords

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strictly speaking, the dot in the latter space isn't actually necessary. It needs to be a resolvable domain, but if you bought a TLD you could be "name@tld"

Wow, that is literally the only reason I would want a TLD

ICANN forbids application records at the apex of a TLD. The only TLDs that do funky things like this are ccTLDs.

And if you try to actually use a bare TLD you will crash hard into collisions with unqualifed domains and search paths. So, fun as a hack to amuse fellow techies but not useful for anything real.

Re: Let them paste passwords

#305

Of course it reduces security. It makes you resort to either 1.) typing it out manually while you can't see if you made a mistake 2.) using developer tools to set the 'value' attribute directly "SPP" discourages use of a password manager. End of story. I also see this pattern used on banking websites for inputs like an account number. This drives me crazy as well for the same reason. The computer can get it right mor…

Other signs that a site was built by incompetent developers (Or had too much management interference--Devs aren't always to blame!): Only works with Internet Explorer Doesn't work with Internet Explorer Password must have one of 4-10 special characters, but not other special characters. (e.g.: Must contain !, @, ^, &, or parentheses, but not ;, ", etc) Passwords have no requirements Right-click is disabled Video play…

Why do you think that "Passwords have no requirements" is a sign of incompetence?

Re: Let them paste passwords

#306
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The most email validation I evern implement is "there must be an @ sign with stuff before and after the @ sign". Maybe require a dot in the latter space.

.+@.+\..+

One (probably forgotten) reason people validated email addresses with convoluted regexps is that there are multiple (actually valid per RFC) email addresses formats that can do nasty things. Like explicitly specifying a series of mail servers to go through. They're (hopefully) deprecated and rejected by most servers nowadays, though.

Re: Let them paste passwords

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other signs that a site was built by incompetent developers (Or had too much management interference--Devs aren't always to blame!): Only works with Internet Explorer Doesn't work with Internet Explorer Password must have one of 4-10 special characters, but not other special characters. (e.g.: Must contain !, @, ^, &, or parentheses, but not ;, ", etc) Passwords have no requirements Right-click is disabled Video play…

Why do you think that "Passwords have no requirements" is a sign of incompetence?

Length seems like a reasonable requirement, e.g. it can't be "asd"

Re: Let them paste passwords

#308
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a gem at my last university (UCL): you must rotate your password every few months, your password can't be anything like any of the previous ones (i.e. previous ones are stored, and they're not hashed), your password must contain special characters etc. Except.. it can only be 8 characters long. Anything else gets truncated (they explicitly said so). The mind boggles. I have no idea where this limitation comes…

> your password can't be anything like any of the previous ones (i.e. they're not stored hashed) That's... not necessarily the case. You can implement that check by only storing hashes of previous passwords, or of patterns derived form them that are also forbidden (e.g. store a bcrypt of every previous password converted to all lowercase and with numbers and symbols removed).

That's unnecessarily complex. Just ask for the old password when doing an expiration reset. Validate the old one then compare that against the proposed new one.

Re: Let them paste passwords

#309
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other signs that a site was built by incompetent developers (Or had too much management interference--Devs aren't always to blame!): Only works with Internet Explorer Doesn't work with Internet Explorer Password must have one of 4-10 special characters, but not other special characters. (e.g.: Must contain !, @, ^, &, or parentheses, but not ;, ", etc) Passwords have no requirements Right-click is disabled Video play…

We had a gem at my last university (UCL): you must rotate your password every few months, your password can't be anything like any of the previous ones (i.e. previous ones are stored, and they're not hashed), your password must contain special characters etc. Except.. it can only be 8 characters long. Anything else gets truncated (they explicitly said so). The mind boggles. I have no idea where this limitation comes…

I have seen my online password for Australia's biggest Telco, in plaintext on a computer screen in the shop while buying a new phone...

Re: Let them paste passwords

#310
post #8

"Justification 2: 'Pasting passwords makes them easier to forget, because you have fewer chances to practise them'." if you can remember your password, its probably too weak

My random Adobe password is something in the order of 60 characters long. Just because.

If they disabled pasting, I'd disable my account.

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