Years ago, one of my Windows NT instructors mentioned two passwords to use
that most people would never think of..
1. Rather than using conventional keyboard characters, use something from
the extended ASCII character set by holding down the Alt key and using the
numeric keypad to enter the ASCII equivilant number representing the
character.
I believe he demonstrated by using the ASCII number equivilant to
'backspace'. Hold down the Alt key and enter using the numeric keypad, 008
then let off the Alt key.
Not only would most people never think of it, it wouldn't display anything
on the screen.
2. The other simpler example he used, was based on the fact that in NT at
least, in User Manager for Domains, you can look up any user, but the field
that lists the users password, displays 14 *'s no matter what the password
is.
Simply use a password of 14 *'s. (**************)
One of the Salemen at our company, has a company issued laptop. He was
having some problems with it one day, so he asked me to come take a look at
it for him.
Yep, right on the OUTSIDE lid of the laptop was a piece of paper perhaps
4x6" with both his login name for the corporate network AND the password!
Didn't even tape it to the INSIDE of the lid!
At least the way he taped it to the lid was such that when the laptop was
open, anybody from across the room that looked at it would see it upside
down....
"Silvan" wrote in message
...
Mark & Juanita wrote:
that the user hasn't chosen aardvark1 as a password, how long is it going
to take an automated hacking program to get user access with brute-force
attacks? Given the example you cite below, just because banana may be a
Reminds me... I had a bit of fun once, for no particular reason. I
decided
to list out all the possible passwords for a... I don't remember, maybe 7
character password and write them to a file. I ran the program, and it
filled up my 40 gig hard drive in practically no time, probably less than
five minutes, and hadn't gotten much past stuff like @@@@@@! or whatever.
Of course I knew there were 13.4 bajillion different combinations, but
that
really drove it home. I never really thought about how big the resulting
text file would be to hold them all listed out.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/