Timeline for Is the NHS wrong about passwords?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 16, 2016 at 20:46 | comment | added | mostlyinformed | I agree with everything but the last paragraph. I think it is useful to teach people about the reasoning behind password complexity requirements in general (though not, I'd concur, the details of any one particular set of rules), because if they understand that reasoning many of them (in theory, hopefully) might be more inclined & able to choose stronger passwords on their own volition. Versus just doing the bare minimum to satisfy the requirements of whatever technical enforcement mechanism is in place. | |
| Oct 7, 2016 at 6:50 | comment | added | Robin Winslow | I object to this "unanswerable" standpoint. Yes there are certain unknowns, meaning it's not possible to calculate absolute definitely correct numbers about possibilities. This does not mean it's unanswerable, as all we're looking for here are generalities. We know rough sizes of alphabets people tend to use. And also, is it not true that the number of possibilities added by extending length from 7 to 10 far outweighs a difference of, say, 40% or so in your alphabet size? Regardless of unknowns, there are definitely better and worse rules of thumb. | |
| Oct 7, 2016 at 5:55 | comment | added | Vality | @LorenPechtel I understand that, and as I tried to imply I was not saying that the example is truly realistic, but merely that ambiguities like that are enough to make the question impossible to answer with any certainty. | |
| Oct 7, 2016 at 5:53 | comment | added | Loren Pechtel | From a practical standpoint the keyspace has to be restricted to what the user can reasonably type. Since this is the NHS the only language they can be sure of having available is English. Foreign speakers might have other things configured on their systems but that doesn't mean every computer they may need to use will thus be configured. | |
| Oct 6, 2016 at 23:25 | review | First posts | |||
| Oct 7, 2016 at 0:29 | |||||
| Oct 6, 2016 at 23:20 | history | answered | Vality | CC BY-SA 3.0 |