Password choices

Ken Lee klee at daisy.UUCP
Thu Jul 7 11:00:45 AEST 1988


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 at ames.arc.nasa.gov

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