Password Choices

[John R. Pliler]

cmiller at sunspot.uucp (Charlie Miller) wrote:

>In article <16562 at brl-adm.ARPA> JPLILER at simtel20.arpa (John R. Pliler) writes:
>>
>>Why not use a *random* password generator?
>>John Pliler
>
>Because you can generate your own password that has meaning to *you*
>and is easy for you to remember, but appears random.
>	-Charlie cmiller at sunspot.UUCP
>
Not all users are security conscious like you or I.  Many users, particularly
novices, choose *easy* passwords, such as flames, street addresses, telephone
numbers, nicknames, common words.  I've done this myself in the past.  The
random password generator prevents this.

dave at csd4.milw.wisc.edu (David A Rasmussen) wrote:

>I had obtained some code from someone a number of years ago that generated
>8 letter random pronouncable gibberish passwords. I use a subset of this
>code in our users initial passwords {and then they teach them in the
>beginning users class that they can use the passwd command to change their
>password to something easier to remember :-( }
>
>Perhaps if he reads this he may want to make a posting?
>
>nifcucta rirpolta fipnosto lutlogro   (samples)
>
>
You need to write another passwd program and incorporate a procedure to call
the random password generator.  (We have a nice piece of code that performs
this task but I can't release it since it is *controlled*.)

The password generator is really meant to be an *additional* security
feature, not the only security feature.  There are other features, many
of which have been recently publicized in INFO-UNIX, which will provide
even more peace of mind..

John R. Pliler
Electronics Engineer
White Sands Missile Range
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