Non-printing ASCII characters in WinXP Home, Admin Password - can't do it?

From: frank (frankdrebin2002_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 07/29/03 

Date: 28 Jul 2003 22:20:42 -0700

In Microsoft's "Ask Us About...Security" article, by Joel Scambray,
May 2000, (found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/columns/security/askus/au042400.asp
), in the 4th paragraph (after '2.'), it's stated that "...What is
lesser known is that the non-printing ASCII characters increase the
wordspace even further, and have the added benefit of preventing brute
force attacks by most password guessing software..."

I'm running WinXP Home. Logged in as a User that's a Computer
Administrator, I created a Limited User account named "Test" (without
the quotes). When giving the account a password, I typed in "456"
(without the quotes), and then I held down the Alt key on the
keyboard, and typed in "0008" (without the quotes) using the numeric
keypad (yes, numlock is on.) It *appeared* as if nothing more was
entered after the first 3 asterisks. But I would think that that is
exactly what should happen. After all, isn't Alt008 a non-printing
character?

I then click on OK (or Finish, or whatever), and logged out, and then
logged back in as Test, *entering as the password only "456"*. I was
able to log in just fine.

Why? Why was the password "456" not rejected as incorrect? Shouldn't
my password have been "456(then hold down the Alt key and type in 0008
on the numeric keypad)"?

My bottom line question is: How can I enter a password that has a
non-printing character in it for a Limited Account on WinXP Home
systems ? TIA for any advice.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: can I know how to write a html parser in C
    ... On each iteration of the loop, fetch one character ... then transit to state 3 else transit to state 4 ... you are not presently in quotes. ... You must account for comments! ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: Non-printing ASCII characters in WinXP Home, Admin Password - cant do it?
    ... Hi Frank, ... When giving the account a password, ... > (without the quotes), and then I held down the Alt key on the ... > non-printing character in it for a Limited Account on WinXP Home ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin)
  • Re: PING: Former AGDers
    ... Remember, if the wife gets addicted, you can register another account ... with the *same* personal info and transfer the wife's character to the ... Druids have absolutely no issue finding parties compared to hunters. ... if you want to discover the teamplay fast, go build a druid, you'll be ...
    (alt.games.warcraft)
  • Re: Beginners Program
    ... I'd put single quotes aroung the, ... If you are putting "s in a string then it is usually best to use a different ... input file things could go wrong. ... and that the final line of input does end with a newline character. ...
    (comp.lang.perl.misc)
  • Re: Account permanently disabled?
    ... Hope this helps and good luck to getting your account restored. ... I was under the understanding that paid character transfers ... get my items and gold restored as well as get the transfer reversed. ...
    (alt.games.warcraft)