Re: Strong Passwords Revisited

From: nameless (namelyouress@myrealbclothesox.com)
Date: 02/14/03 

From: "nameless" <namelyouress@myrealbclothesox.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 20:40:52 GMT

The Thinker wrote:

> password management is a complicated problem. The issues highlighted
> by Calvin are commonly faced by most IT managers. The idea is to
> educate the user about the importance of complicated passwords and
> the ramifications that may emanate in the event of a compromise.
> Systemic changes and enforcing complex passwords on the system are of
> little avail unless changes are more structural, fundamental and
> sponsorship from the users.
>
> I used to advise my clients to enforce complex passwords (through
> passfilt) and periodic changing of passwords. But at the same time I
> also made it clear that unless users do not realize the importance of
> passwords, helpdesk calls would continue to increase.

The most idiotic circumstance is that which prevaled at my former
workplace. There, they forced frequent password changes, but did *not*
require strong passwords. So, what is a user to do, faced with the task
of changing and remembering umpteen million passwords? They use short,
simple passwords, and they recycle them often, and use the same ones on
different platforms and systems, that's what. I always thought it would
have been better to NOT require such frequent password changes, but DO
require some complexity, if anything. Oh, whatever. 

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