Secure password generation...blasphemy!
Anton Shterenlikht
mexas at bristol.ac.uk
Tue Aug 4 08:18:48 UTC 2009
On Tue, Aug 04, 2009 at 09:52:21AM +0200, Roland Smith wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 03, 2009 at 08:28:52PM -0600, Modulok wrote:
> > I need a way to generate a lot of secure passwords. So, I read all
> > about it. Either people are getting way carried away, or I'm missing
> > something...
>
> It is very easy to generate hard-to-guess semi-random passwords:
>
> openssl rand -base64 6
>
> some examples:
>
> hJ9WQ0eK oOyHWEd4 W801vDIB mob29k5I RVDXkE/9 7BRHC+8h
>
> Even though this is semi-random, these are still extremely hard to
> guess, and neither will a dictionary attack be much use. The _big_
> downside is that this kind of passwords are hard to remember. So people
> _will_ write them down. Which isn't a problem in itself, as long as they
> keep that piece of paper secure. (so not taped to their monitor, or
> under their keyboard.)
>
> A better solution IMHO is to let people make their own acronyms, mixed
> with a little l33tsp34k. That way you can have something easy to
> remember, but still hard to guess. E.g. "Ask not for whom the bell
> tolls" would become "An4wtbt".
I really like the VMS password generation facility:
UAF> modify donkey/generate_password
tratworman
cralopyter
bosequism
coshindius
jaritions
Enter PRIMARY password:
clumiump
wrielene
guirtiety
scapress
primpatly
Enter PRIMARY password:
odliesting
conetred
emenstate
ammycle
rasests
...
You are given a choice of 5 passwords to choose from.
If you don't like any, keep going until something
comes up that's easy to remember for you.
The system manager can specify the min required length.
I think this is a really nice utility, and VMS systems are
very rarely compromised, though perhaps VMS users are
better trained in password safe keeping.
--
Anton Shterenlikht
Room 2.6, Queen's Building
Mech Eng Dept
Bristol University
University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK
Tel: +44 (0)117 928 8233
Fax: +44 (0)117 929 4423
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