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| Newer page: | version 12 | Last edited on Friday, October 22, 2004 9:05:12 am | by PerryLorier | Revert |
| Older page: | version 1 | Last edited on Tuesday, September 10, 2002 3:09:29 pm | by PerryLorier | Revert |
@@ -1,4 +1,36 @@
PerryLorier's prefered way of choosing passwords:
cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc ' -~' | fold -w 20 | head -1
I highly recommend it for everybody.
+
+(My new password is _]}e9pgU5-u6_hr[KF|*).
+
+/dev/urandom is an interface to the kernel's random number generator. If you cat it, you'll get (mostly) random characters. See random(4) for information.
+
+tr(1) is a character translator. -d stands for 'delete characters in this set' and -c stands for 'compliment'. If you check ascii(7) you will see that space and tilde (~) are the outer limits of the 'typeable' [ASCII] character set. The translator stage will throw away anything lower than space or higher than tilde (all the high-bit [ASCII] character).
+
+fold(1) wraps lines to a certain width. -w 20 wraps at 20 characters (the default is 80.) Mere mortals will probably want to set this to around 8.
+
+head(1) (the opposite of tail(1)) returns the first lines of an input. head -1 returns only the first line. (use head -n 8 if you want some choices to pick from).
+
+----
+
+PerryLorier won this week's [useless use of cat award|http://www.sektorn.mooo.com/era/unix/award.html]. The fold(1) is also redundant since head(1) has a __-c__ parameter. In a pinch,
+
+ tr -dc ' -~' < /dev/urandom | head -c 20
+
+Cheers. :)
+
+--AristotlePagaltzis
+
+''every time you waste a cat, god kills a kitten''
+
+----
+
+Another popular method is to take the first letter of each word in a line from a song (eg 'I want to ride my bicycle' -> iwtrmb), or a phrase you can remember and changing letters to numbers ('foursquare' -> 'f0ursqu4r3')
+
+If none of these methods are to your liking, you can always set your password to "gandalf". This is highly original, and no-one is likely to think of it.
+
+You might find more information on the SecurityNotes page.
+----
+CategorySecurity
