From: joshua geller <joshua@cae.retix.com>
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 94 17:34:55 PDT
To: smb@research.att.com
Subject: Re: Password Difficulties
In-Reply-To: <9407032349.AA28389@toad.com>
Message-ID: <199407040034.RAA04757@sleepy.retix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>   My tests were informal.  The target was mostly taken from the sci.crypt
>   readership -- I don't deal much with management...

>   The initial tests were on passphrases of lengths from 12 to 20, as I
>   recall.  The phrases were created by chosing random words from
>   /usr/dict/words -- and the resulting pass-phrases were exceedingly
>   weird, which may have contributed to folks difficulty in typing them.
>   Not that the scores were bad, but they weren't great.

I wonder how much the success that I (and apparently others) have with
long pass phrases is due to the fact that we pick our own sentences
which have some meaning (presumably) to us.

josh