Re: brute forcing - numbers of passwords possible?

On 4 Gen, 13:31, bealoid <sig...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A software allows a user password of up to 62 characters, selected from a
set of 95 characters.

Is the total number of different passwords given by:

62^95

or by:

62^95 + 61^95 + 60^95 . . . + 3^95 + 2^95 + 1^92

It's 95^62 + 95^61 + ... + 95^2 + 95^1 + 1 =
= sum_of(95^i)_for(i = 0 to 62) =
= (1 - 95^63) / (1 - 95)

And if it's the latter, is there an easier way to do it than the way I've
shown?

When talking about brute forcing such a password is it best to say "there
are X number of passwords possible", or "there are X possible passwords,
but you'd expect to break a password with brute force after Y tests"?

And what would Y be, about X/2?

Y = X / 2 if the passwords are chosen at random, with uniform
probability and independence bewteen the characters.

Thanks in advance for help.

.

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