Re: [PLUG] Password managers

[JP Vossen <jp@jpsdomain.org>]

On 04/06/2017 02:47 PM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 2:23 PM, Steve Litt <slitt@troubleshooters.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, 05 Apr 2017 13:06:05 -0400
> > <jvoris@axs2000.net> wrote:
> >
> > > This may be a little off-subject
> > >
> > > I just had a discussion on the topic of passwords on another listserv,
> > > and this cartoon makes a valid point that Password Rules on a 10A
> > > password are just not as good as a plain 128 character password.
> > >
> > > https://xkcd.com/936/
> >
> > I'd hardly call "correct horse battery staple" easy to remember.
> > Probably not that hard to guess using a dictionary attack either.
>
> The first bit seems somewhat subjective, but the second bit is quite
> straightforward to measure, and indeed in the comic itself estimates
> it at 44 bits of entropy.
>
> Now, this is probably based on the size of the dictionary and the
> assumption that all words in that dictionary are equally likely to be
> selected.  If you're using a password generator to generate a single
> password and sticking with it that would be completely accurate.  If
> you're just guessing your own words or looking at a page of
> suggestions and picking the most memorable one, then it seems likely
> that the "real" dictionary is smaller.  I suspect somebody is much
> more likely to pick "horse" than "brusquely" - to pick something
> random from /usr/share/dict/

Speaking of the list of random words, here is my alias for that.  I 
forget if I stole this off the web, wrote it myself or some combo, but:

(1 line)
alias randomwords='shuf -n102 /usr/share/dict/words | perl -ne '\''print 
qq(\u$_);'\'' | column'

It looks like:
/tmp$ randomwords
Beverly's	Jake's		Chillest	Willowy
Builder		Alto's		Buddies		Menkar
Empirical	Sorrow		Grassed		Percents
...

I use that for creating passwords I need to give to someone over the 
phone or something.  "Builder Sorrow Grassed Percents" is a HELL of a 
lot easier to get across than "7^|s6n5I>9Srf7".

Later,
JP
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