Spaces in passwords
Bill Stewart
stewarts at ix.netcom.com
Thu Apr 18 15:16:48 PDT 1996
>Ben Rothke writes:
>> Do spaces (ASCII 20) in passwords make them less secure?
>
>Of course not. In a normal Unix password, adding spaces to the
>password search space increases the search space, so it necessarily
>makes the search harder.
Depends on the space of ideas that are leading to your passwords.
If the reason you're adding spaces is to separate an n-character word
from the dictionary from a 7-n character word from the dictionary,
this reduces the search space for a cracker considerably.
At least pick random punctuation instead.
On the other hand, if your password is a bunch of randomly chosen
characters, having another character in the space doesn't hurt.
# Thanks; Bill
# Bill Stewart, stewarts at ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215
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