this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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Technology

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (4 children)

All cool and dandy, until you have to type that random 50 letter string on your TV.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Many PW managers let you generate passphrases, which are all around better than random strings. Length is the most important factor so

finance-caffeine-utopia-redress-unseen

Is way stronger and easier to remember (and type) than

Fl7$j4FWw)&5O

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Huh, TIL. I had no idea that was an option but that's super useful for things I need to type in on a device with no keyboard, or even things I can't access my password manager for. Thanks for the protip there!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

And pass phrases are faster to type and with less typos even though they need more characters than passwords to be the same secure.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Is it really safer? I mean when trying to bruteforce a password, one would have to make a guess whether it's a passphrase or not. But if you decided to check for pass phrases, wouldn't the one you posted be cracked in 5 times the amount of words in that dictionary? I'm not sure how large the vocabularies of the generators are, but I would guess a random 17 char password might be safer than a 5 phrases password?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

but I would guess a random 17 char password might be safer than a 5 phrases password

And you would be very wrong about that. A 5 phrase password has entropy. "finance-caffeine-utopia-redress-unseen" is 28 characters. If you add in a different symbol between the words and add a number somewhere, this password becomes incredibly difficult to brute force.

I'll let xkcd explain it better.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Youre right,different separators, numbers and even capital letters change my theory alot

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

It'd be dictionary length to the fifth power, not times five.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

You don't need to make it that long.

And also most TVs or whatever you're streaming with has a way to type from your phone nowadays. Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV, heck I think even Xbox.

It's kinda nice on Apple TV your phone will suggest autofill passwords for the TV, even from theirs party password managers like Bitwarden.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Android tv's arent that old. 10 years max. 5 years since it's affordable for most people. Is it unreasonable to own a 5 year old non-smart tv? I think not. I think it's weird that so many people assume everyone owns a smart tv.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

In what scenario would you need to type in a password on a non-smart TV though? Parental lock?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You're not wrong but in what context would you be putting in passwords on a non-smart device

Also it's not just smart TVs. You can hook up streaming sticks and boxes and game consoles to anything with an HDMI port

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

I had to do that recently, ended up being easier to just temporarily change the password to something short on a pc, then change it back after.