generating random passwords

[Jeffrey Goldberg]

On Jun 11, 2008, at 11:35 AM, Bill Campbell wrote:

> One of the biggest problems with random passwords is that they
> end up written on yellow-stickies on the monitor or under the
> keyboard.

I'm going to take this opportunity to preach. Everyone should be using  
a good password management system.  Otherwise people will use either  
weak passwords or will use passwords which are predictable from other  
passwords.  (That is using the same password or variants of the same  
password for many separate realms.)

I don't run FreeBSD on desktops so I haven't looked at the various  
tools available.  On OS X, I use 1password which makes excellent use  
of the OS X Keychain system, and has terrific webbrowser integration.   
I'm fairly sure that the Apple Keychain libraries have been or can be  
ported to FreeBSD, but it might require GnuStep.

On Window's I recommend Password Safe.  In ports, sysutils/pwsafe  
provides a CLI utility that can manage Password Safe data.  And  
security/gorilla provides a tcl/tk GUI for pwsafe.  I've used both on  
OS X, and the work fine, but I much prefer 1password in that  
environment.

I've never looked at things like kwallet or other Unixish password  
management systems.  But once again, I recommend that everyone use a  
proper password management system.

-j


-- 
Jeffrey Goldberg                        http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/