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Message-ID: <20160925112420.GB6499@openwall.com>
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2016 13:24:20 +0200
From: Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com>
To: passwdqc-users@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: curse words in passwords
On Sun, Sep 25, 2016 at 04:54:58PM +1000, Andrew Stuart wrote:
> In less than 50 password generations I have had three passwords that included
>
> shit
> cock
> gay (not that this is a curse word
And is e.g. cock a curse word? It depends.
> but I'm wondering if some childish code underlies this password generator)
Not sure what you mean here. That there was deliberate attempt to use
controversial words? No, there was not. It's just that 4096 common
English words of length up to 6 do indeed include these words above.
> Is this some sort of joke? I am generating passwords to give to my users - can this software trusted? Can I expect it to generate more controversial words?
Unfortunately, yes - it will generate more controversial words, and not
only words, but also word combinations where each individual word would
likely not be considered controversial on its own, but the combination
is likely to be.
We have a pending task to revise passwdqc's list of words to replace the
more likely problematic ones - in terms of not only such words on their
own, but also their use in passphrases. My current estimate is that
maybe 200 words, if not more, will need to be replaced. 200 is about 5%
of the total words we have. Unfortunately, this may make passphrases
somewhat harder to memorize, but we probably have to make this change.
Thank you for reminding us about this.
Alexander
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