Apple Passwords’ generated strong password format

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.

In the context of web authentication, does entropy even matter (beyond an extremely low threshold)? Are there any attacks that actually occur that are defeated by increasing entropy? AFAIK basically all the auth attacks we see today are from password re-use, and out-of-band authentication, neither of which password entropy has an effect on.

"Summer2024!" is perfectly fine, if you use it for exactly one service. Frankly, "1235" is probably fine. No one is out there brute-forcing passwords.

> AFAIK basically all the auth attacks we see today are from password re-use

https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords says Summer2024! has been seen in two breaches, which means even if it weren't being brute forced it's less safe. 1235 has been seen significantly more times...

I'm curious if you're just being satirical here - it's not entirely obvious.

I'm not. If you use a unique password for every service, entropy doesn't matter beyond a low threshold, because guessing passwords against a live service is not an attack people are actually doing. The "1235" is an extreme example, I wouldn't bet my bank account on it, but I still think the point stands.