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Strong Passwords Not As Good As You Think 553

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday July 13, 2009 @10:42AM from the still-better-than-'password' dept.

Jamie noticed that Bruce Schneier wrote a piece on a paper on strong passwords that tells us that the old 'strong password' advice that many of us (myself included) regard as gospel might not be as true as we had hoped. They make things hard on users, but are useless against phishing and keyloggers. Everyone can change their password back to 'trustno1' now.

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Strong Passwords Not As Good As You Think

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Woo hoo! (Score:2, Funny)

by BobSixtyFour ( 967533 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @10:46AM (#28676257)

Yes! Now i can change my password back to password!

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c'mon (Score:4, Funny)

by greebowarrior ( 961561 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @10:46AM (#28676265) Homepage

surely we should all be changing our passwords back to "Joshua"?

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Re:I'll repeat what I've said before: Use sentence (Score:5, Funny)

by Nerdfest ( 867930 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @10:55AM (#28676403)

Slashdot is an excellent source of many of these sentences, as with spelling mistakes they're even harder to brute-force.

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My password (Score:5, Funny)

by Rik Sweeney ( 471717 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @10:56AM (#28676421) Homepage

I sometimes set my password to ******** It sounds stupid but it has two advantages:
1. I know that I've typed in a * because I can see it
and, most importantly
2. When I have to repeat my password to confirm it, I can just copy and paste the previous field, saving me literally seconds of typing

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Re:HEY! (Score:4, Funny)

by Mattcelt ( 454751 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:03AM (#28676573)

Ha! Dumbass. You need a better password now, like the one I have on my luggage: 1-2-3-4-5

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Re:c'mon (Score:2, Funny)

by maxume ( 22995 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:04AM (#28676603)

At least it is a reasonable name. If he named his kid Swordfish...

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Re:HEY! (Score:5, Funny)

by Yvan256 ( 722131 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:08AM (#28676671) Homepage Journal

1-2-3-4-5? That's amazing. I've got the same combination on my planetary air shield!

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Re:News at 11 (Score:5, Funny)

by grumpyman ( 849537 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:09AM (#28676685)

"Security" people who don't know anything about non-IT users like to make password rules that are so obtuse that normal users simply can't deal with them. The result is sticky noted passwords.
.... while sys admin uses "admin" as password on servers/switches without the need to change, ever?

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Re:My password (Score:3, Funny)

by ptbarnett ( 159784 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:10AM (#28676711)

I sometimes set my password to ********
Your password is hunter2 [bash.org]?

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Re:I'll repeat what I've said before: Use sentence (Score:4, Funny)

by MadKeithV ( 102058 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:21AM (#28676915)

My password ends in:
3...
4 PROFIT!.
It's a reward for whoever cracks it - they'll probably profit.

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Re:News for who? (Score:2, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:21AM (#28676917)

Here's another news flash for you, computers do not run on magic crystals.
Duh! Everyone already know they run on smoke...

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Re:Throwing the baby out with the bathingwater? (Score:2, Funny)

by ArsenneLupin ( 766289 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:23AM (#28676961)

Yeah, Windows weaken the security of every house...

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Re:News at 11 (Score:5, Funny)

by Deadstick ( 535032 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:26AM (#28677025)

on my cubical wall
Most of mine are planar...
rj

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Re:limited application (Score:5, Funny)

by Opportunist ( 166417 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:31AM (#28677109)

It's a sticky note with gibberish on the monitor. What could it be.
A friend of mine had a genuinely clever idea for a password: The serial key on the back of the monitor of the guy sitting opposite of him. He has it right in front of him, it's completely impossible to guess, no sticky note giving it away and yet it's written down and won't go away or get lost.
He only has to call IT every other year when they upgrade monitors.

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Re:News at 11 (Score:4, Funny)

by corbettw ( 214229 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:42AM (#28677291) Journal

Not yet, but that's supposed to be a feature in Windows 7.

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Re:News at 11 (Score:4, Funny)

by geminidomino ( 614729 ) * writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:46AM (#28677345) Journal

...using the first line of each song to generate your password... 'I see a little silhouetto of a man' becomes 15al50am
I'm sure you mean "1ttr71tjf" yes?

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Re:Woo hoo! (Score:3, Funny)

by ae1294 ( 1547521 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:55AM (#28677499) Journal

At least those of us who speak french have much better passwords. Mine is 10 characters long, that's 2 characters better than yours!
O yeah! Well my passwords go to 11.. yeah that's right... exactly 1 higher than yours frenchy...

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Re:HEY! (Score:4, Funny)

by tnk1 ( 899206 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:57AM (#28677543)

1-2-3-4-5?
Newbs. The highly secure password on US Nuclear weapons used to be:
00000000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link [wikipedia.org]
On the other hand, at least the US weapons actually have locks. Other countries' nukes don't.

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Re:Woo hoo! (Score:5, Funny)

by SlashBugs ( 1339813 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @12:00PM (#28677591)

"lepassword"?

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Re:News at 11 (Score:5, Funny)

by sfarmstrong ( 1106577 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @12:56PM (#28678619)

I know! And "Area51" is like the only dictionary-like password within the constraints you describe, so I can crack the system in a single guess! And I'm practically guaranteed to get classified information with that kind of password!

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Even Better (Score:3, Funny)

by Zygamorph ( 917923 ) writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @12:59PM (#28678671)

Years ago one of my co-workers was asked by management to do a global password change on the systems (s)he supported. It was to be done late Friday afternoon for the "usual" reasons. The systems were such that you couldn't just expire them so they were individually reset to new ones. (S)He did this and then put post-its on everyone's monitor to let them know what their new password was when they came in on Monday. Shortly thereafter there was a new global password change.

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Re:News at 11 (Score:1, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Monday July 13, 2009 @04:21PM (#28681967)

Yes - since I installed some software that would rid my computer of malware I've needed my credit card to log in and add updates. Each time I log in it costs more to get rid of the malware. At least I know it is secure because I've paid for the software.
Oddly my credit card details keep getting stolen since I installed the software. It can't be this trustworthy software can it?

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