[Coco] Tandy / Color Computer Forum Access

[Frank Pittel]

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 04:38:03PM -0400, Steven Hirsch wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Mar 2011, gene heskett wrote:
> 
> >On Friday, March 25, 2011 02:19:38 PM Brian Blake did opine:
> >
> >>On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 2:01 PM, Wayne Campbell <asa.rand at gmail.com>
> >wrote:
> >>>Most of them do recommend periodic changes, but leave it up to the
> >>>user.
> >>>
> >>>Wayne
> >>
> >>That's what will end up happening. Though if there is ever an instance
> >>where there's a security issue, it'll be required... No major biggie...
> >
> >The security issue is, as I see it, the short password.  A 6 character PW
> >can be found by John the Ripper in just a few seconds.  My own minimum user
> >password length is 9, and my root PW on this machine is, lets just say,
> >more than 20.  Same for the admin password on dd-wrt.  John would have to
> >work till the universe runs down to find those, as every character added
> >adds to the factorial on the difficulty. To illustrate, a 6 char PW is
> >6!=720. 9!=362880. and 20!=2.43290200818e+18, a rather large number.
> >
> >You have to make it expensive enough to crack your password that they get
> >bored and go looking for easier targets.
> 
> My employer mandates a "three strikes and it's locked" policy on
> authentication attempts.  Now that I think about it, most web
> accounts I own do that as well.  Renders brute-force cracking tools
> a bit impractical.

The forum software I use also limits the number of failed login attempts
before shutting down the account. Unlocking the account requires me to
unlock!

The Other Frank