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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!sgi!daisy!klee
From: klee@daisy.UUCP (Ken Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Password choices
Message-ID: <1339@daisy.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jul 88 01:00:45 GMT
References: <4387@ptsfa.PacBell.COM>
Reply-To: klee@daisy.UUCP (Ken Lee)
Organization: Daisy Systems Corp., Mountain View, Ca.
Lines: 25

I don't know of any formal studies, but I wouldn't be suprised if half
of all (user picked) passwords are permutations (approximately in order) of:
	spouse's (or significant other's) name
	user's name
	children's names
	pet's names
	other relative's names
	present or former addresses (street or city names)

I also wouldn't be suprised if almost all of the rest were found in the
smallest on-line "spell" dictionary.

A good password is, obviously, not in any of the above look-up tables.
Better still, it is changed regularly and composed of a variety of
characters (lower case, upper case, numbers, other printable characters,
and, if allowed, non-printable characters).

Enjoy.

Ken
-- 
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