Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:7997 comp.misc:2725 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 -- uucp: {atari, nsc, pyramid, imagen, uunet}!daisy!klee arpanet: atari!daisy!klee@ames.arc.nasa.gov STOP CONTRA AID - BOYCOTT COCAINE