Worm/Passwords

Brandon S. Allbery allbery at ncoast.UUCP
Fri Nov 25 04:27:57 AEST 1988


As quoted from <4668 at mtgzz.att.com> by avr at mtgzz.att.com (a.v.reed):
+---------------
| psychology" types. Yes, there are good programs that generate passwords
| which incorporate a random element but can be remembered by humans
| anyway. To design such a program, you have to know not only what is
| difficult to crack, but also what is easy for people to remember. 
+---------------

I once hacked together a program that used tables of letters which commonly
followed one another in English to create random but (usually) pronounceable
passwords.  I don't know how anyone else's brain works (heck, I'm fuzzy on
how *mine* works ;-) but I find pronounceable passwords MUCH easier to
remember.  The program is dust now, along with the computer it ran on (OSI
SuperBoard II, 8K BASIC!) but I should be able to recreate the program with
a little thinking.

A possible enhancement is to use phonemes instead of letters, thus
increasing the chances of a pronounceable password.  It could be combined
with a phoneme-to-letter table which could randomly (or maybe not so
randomly, depends on how much time I want to put in it) choose between
alternative representations (f/ph, etc.) of a phoneme.

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, comp.sources.misc moderator and one admin of ncoast PA UN*X
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