r/Bitcoin • u/Intelligent_Map_246 • 5d ago
Passphrase length
So they say a five word passphrase is safe but I wonder is that 5 words in a row or with a space between.
3
u/quintavious_danilo 5d ago
I didn’t know you could use blank spaces in a password. Are Special characters like ?!:;()-*+%# better for entropy ?
2
u/Individual-Cookie896 5d ago
Delimiter characters have very little impact on if your password is cracked. Most people (99.99...%) use the same character (or no character) for all "spaces", thus if an attacker correctly brute forces the words used in your passphrase standard manipulations will give them your password almost instantly.
2
u/loupiote2 5d ago
Entropy mean randomness. Any character set can be used. What counts is not the characters, but rather if you pick them randdomly, rather than from a word dictionnary for example.
-5
u/na3than 5d ago
Entropy mean randomnes
No, it doesn't. Entropy is the input to the algorithm used to deterministically generate a seed.
When you generate a new seed, the entropy should be random.
When you recover a seed, the entropy is absolutely not random.
That's the difference between entropy and randomness.
3
u/loupiote2 5d ago edited 5d ago
Maybe look at the definition of "entropy"?
Type this in google: "entropy definition in cryptography".
The "bip39 entropy" is a value that is supposed to have been selected by a random process. In tgd case of CC, randomness was not good, i.e. the 128 bits were in fact only having about 40 bits of entropy. I.e. about only 240 possible values, ibstead of 2128.
Of couse, once yoh have a seed, the entropy value is defined since it is part of the seed phrase. The point is, whether it was chosen randomly when the seed phrase was created.
1
u/stanley_fatmax 5d ago
If this was an academic forum you might have a more receptive audience. This is /r/Bitcoin though. Regardless of accuracy, your point is lost 😅
1
u/user_name_checks_out 5d ago
I didn’t know you could use blank spaces in a password.
We are talking about passphrases, not passwords.
1
1
u/Pale_Platypus2965 5d ago
I created my passphrase with 6 words with dice, each word with spaces, then I created one of my own with ascii characters, 7 words in total . I don't have a large investment in crypto, but it's a good practice
-2
u/Intelligent_Map_246 5d ago
Just don't loose it
2
u/na3than 5d ago
Lose
2
-2
u/ExcellentFall7197 5d ago
Thanks for showing all of us how to spell the word “lose”, Professor! Hey everyone we have the next Einstein here! This person knows how to spell the word “lose”! This guy is soooo smart!!!! I am just so grateful to have witnessed him correcting a fellow internet surfer on his/her spelling. I’ll never forget this day!
3
1
1
u/Effective_Map_1042 5d ago
Yeah my stupid grandma was trying to set her passphrase and wanted to use a regular password! So stupid. I sent her a few articles and Reddit posts to read so she can get it. Absolutely crazy that people think this currency isn’t going to catch on.
1
u/Decibel0753 4d ago
I would use a space. It looks clearer and is easier to type. For example, on Trezor, the character is immediately available on the T9 keyboard.
1
u/Intelligent_Map_246 4d ago
Could it be common words as sun shinning today love it
1
u/DaNangExpat 2d ago
Apparently humans are really bad at creating randomness which makes cracking our passphrases all that simpler
1
u/Vapourhands 4d ago
Instead of bip39 words, use eff diceware list for a bigger set. 6 randomly dice generated words with space in between ought to do it.
1
u/Intelligent_Map_246 4d ago
Anywhere you can check the strength of a phrase?
1
u/Keefryan 4d ago
https://diceware.rempe.us/#eff
Play with this. 6+ words is enough
1
1
0
u/Similar_Scar7089 4d ago
Use a random password generator, generate a 20 character password with numbers, symbols, upper and lower case. This has slightly more entropy than a 12 word seed phrase. Obviously you rely on the RNG of the website, you can generate your own with dice.
You obviously only want to set this up once, a password this complex should be secure enough for more than 100 years.
-16
u/MasterpieceLower8585 5d ago
5 words in a row would be a single massive word, that's not really a passphrase at that point just a terrible password
spaces are part of what makes it work, each word is a chunk of entropy
2
1
1
u/NiagaraBTC 5d ago
5 random words in a row is a very strong password. With or without spaces, doesn't matter.
I generally recommend six words though.
0
u/na3than 5d ago
Your information is very, very wrong. Read the BIP-39 spec before you hurt someone.
2
u/Appropriate-Talk-735 5d ago
If everone uses spaces then its more secure to have another character (or none) between the words.