From: Arley Carter <ac@hawk.twinds.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 04:08:32 +0800
To: Jon Leonard <jleonard@divcom.umop-ap.com>
Subject: Re: Spaces in passwords
In-Reply-To: <9604181538.AA16305@divcom.umop-ap.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.HPP.3.91.960422114851.20543B-100000@hawk.twinds.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


How is a control character, @, and # any different from typing an uppercase
letter?  Just curious.

Arley Carter
Tradewinds Technologies, Inc.
email: ac@hawk.twinds.com
www: http://www.twinds.com

"Trust me. This is a secure product. I'm from <insert your favorite 
corporation or government agency>."

On Thu, 18 Apr 1996, Jon Leonard wrote:

> > Ben Rothke writes:
> > > Do spaces (ASCII 20) in passwords make them less secure?
> > 
> > Of course not. In a normal Unix password, adding spaces to the
> > password search space increases the search space, so it necessarily
> > makes the search harder.
> 
> The exception to this is when you may be overheard typing a password.
> The space bar sounds different, and an attacker who knows you've used
> a space has a significantly smaller search space.
> 
> So I usually recommend avoiding space, @, #, and control characters
> when generating passwords.  Have I missed any or gotten too many?  
> 
> > .pm
> 
> Jon Leonard
>