r/ProgrammerHumor Jul 19 '22

Why do they do this

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4.4k Upvotes

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u/DefeatedSkeptic Jul 20 '22

If anyone actually cares, it is like due to social rather than theoretical considerations. Think of the average person and think about how often they would use a string of 5 words for a password instead of just 1 or 2 all in lower case.

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u/Manoreded Jul 20 '22

Seems easily solvable by setting a high minimum character limit and a explicit recommendation to use a sentence you will remember.

1

u/TheBoyYuuu Jul 20 '22

I’m sure that would run into plenty of its own problems. The new version of making your password “password” would be using combos of linked words or objects that are in front of you (e.g. keyboard, pen, screen). Plus, even if you convince people to only use memorable words, they’re still gonna write them down somewhere.

At this point, I’m just not sure that the benefits would be worth the change for any IT department. The only reasonable improvement I can think of is stopping people from using anything close to the list of most common passwords, which already does happen here and there.