From: joshua geller <joshua@cae.retix.com>
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 94 00:39:21 PDT
To: kentborg@world.std.com
Subject: Re: Password Difficulties
In-Reply-To: <199407020153.AA07332@world.std.com>
Message-ID: <199407020739.AAA04202@sleepy.retix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>   Hey folks, passwords are hard to choose!

?

>   It boils down to this: I can't remember as many bits as the TLAs can
>   crack by brute force.

I generally choose things like (no, this is not a real one):

Rare steak tastes good when it is cooked over a wood fire. better than
chicken. better than fish. good with worcestershire sauce.

this is for a pgp passphrase, of course.

I find it not to be a problem remembering a sentence character for
character.

>   Starting with a bunch of coin tosses I tried ways of coding them: hex,
>   ASCII, and words off word lists.

>   Horrors!  The hex is too long, ....

>   Sorry, there is no way regular people are going to remember pass words
>   or phrases with more than about 50-bits worth of information in
>   them--and even doing that well is going to be rare.

?

josh