←back to thread

430 points tambourine_man | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.198s | source
Show context
mr_mitm ◴[] No.41879391[source]
I'm glad someone is thinking about UX and ergonomics when it comes to passwords. Most people I interact with have by now realized that generating passwords is a good idea. But if you are already generating the password, please do not include special characters. I regularly use different keyboard layouts (sometimes it is not even clear which layout is active, like in the vSphere web console), and the fact that passwords are often not shown on the screen when typing them makes for terrible UX and causes frustration.

The usual advice about character classes is only for casual users who don't know what makes a secure password. Entropy is the deciding factor: Ten random lower case letters is much more secure than "Summer2024!", which satisfies most password rules and has more characters.

Personally I stick to lower case letters for things like my Netflix password or Wifi key, because typing with a TV remote can be a huge pain. To keep a similar entropy, just increase the length by one or two characters.

replies(10): >>41879469 #>>41879535 #>>41879556 #>>41879734 #>>41879735 #>>41880345 #>>41880499 #>>41881423 #>>41881471 #>>41883418 #
nothercastle ◴[] No.41879469[source]
How much more entropy do you really get for 1 additional capital letter. Probably only a few bits worth 8-12.
replies(4): >>41879529 #>>41879531 #>>41879559 #>>41879832 #
1. plopilop ◴[] No.41879559[source]
Switching one uppercase letter in an otherwise lowercase password adds exactly 1 bit of entropy (per switched letter).

On the other hand, any extra lowercase letter will increase the entropy by 4.7 bits (assuming a password on [a-z]).

Given that most passwords have at best 2 uppercase letters, I would argue it is safer to force longer passwords than passwords with at least one uppercase letter.