Password Evaluator/Checker
WARNING: Using Password Checker with actual passwords indicates that you
trust this web site and
plain text transmission over the Internet. One way to reduce
possible risks, besides avoiding any current real passwords altogether,
would be to change each digit to a different digit and each
punctuation or symbol to a different punctuation or symbol. This will
yield a password of approximately the same strength and still allow the
letters to be compared against the dictionary, including the many
variations and permutations that are checked. If you have repeating or
sequential digits, replace them with different repeating or sequential
digits. If there are multiple puntuation or symbols together, changing
these could create or remove a sequence which may be obscure to human
eyes but not a password cracking tool. Examples: keboard sequence
("$%^"); ASCII collating sequence ("]^_"). The parentheses and
quotes are not part of the sequences.
The very strict default settings originally used by Password Evaluator/Checker
have been relaxed to settings appropriate to long passwords (15 characters and longer).
If you are checking short passwords, you should select the settings for 6
character passwords for any password less than 12 characters, or those for 12
character passwords for 12 to 14 character passwords. The original defaults
were designed to identify
any non random multi character components: words, repeats, sequences, and well known
patterns that can aid a cracker. These can be very important in passwords up to
8 characters, but as the passwords become longer, such components become less
important. As the new Words Only component of the Passwor Generator shows, good
passwords can be made from several "predictable" pieces. The only way to get
useful evaluations of such passwords, using Password Evaluator, is to set
the minimum dictionary word lenght to 6 or 7 and the maximum to 10 or larger.
This will stop the password checker from
identifing the multiple short words we know to be present, and allow it to
possibly find an obscure long word that is hard to see, and which makes the
password a poor password. In this case allowed dictionary words should be
reduced from 1 to 0.
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Copyright © 2000 - 2014 George Shaffer. All rights reserved.
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