Technology

37716 readers

445 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Massive data dump containing millions of passwords sparks security alert: Is your data safe? (www.techspot.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

40 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 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 9 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 9 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 9 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 9 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 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.