Passwords

I too love the Password game! Please save Paul! ~I truly care about him!~ ^Truly!

(Sorry, I sometimes like to post really bad comments...)

Haha this is great, got to the chess part before giving in
- Same. My country was Jordan. Took way too long to figure out, because it dropped me in the middle of an empty amphitheater with no visible road signs, license plates, etc…
- Qxh6
- I'm starting to want to learn chess after learning about the password game. I need to go get further!
Bruh, it just made me google dork to find out where a random street view was. 10/10 would recommend
- Have you been given the egg yet? Don't forget to feed him!
My Roman numerals should multiple to equal 35, but then the county I got starts with a C… how do you multiply by fractions in Roman numerals?!
- You don't need capital letters in the country name
I gave up at the 'find a youtube video of an exact length' step

my laziness limit had been reached
It was great until that step 20 where some 'fire' deleted everything I made. It's one thing to make you think, it's a completely different thing to just delete everything and make you start over. Fuck that noise.
- Yeah, I just got to the password on fire and survived, but I wanted to move Paul to an edge so he doesn't get killed if there's another fire. But apparently cutting/pasting him kills him. :(
  
  Edit: I went back and got to rule 25. Rule 24 was a removed and a half, but I did it. Then I had to sacrifice letters, and I thought, oh, I can't use M or D because they are roman numerals for 1000 and 500, so I chose those. It included lowercase as well, and that made some previous rules impossible. In my anger, I may have overreacted, because I intentionally overfed Paul to kill him.
I haven't known that one yet, hilarious :)
Don't you have to delete paul to win?
Man, when I played, poor Paul got burnt to a crisp. I'm still having flashbacks from that shock.
I got stuck on rule 14 where I had to guess the country in Google maps.

Au2WonderfullyshellnIcepigsXXXV!85mayy4n6mfiend🌘

I guess it's kind of secure. Does the password change daily with the current wordle word?
- it does change a lot with every try
- if you walk down the path like 20m there's a sign that tells you where you are
  
  I stopped playing when my whole password caught fire lmao

“Sorry, that password is already in use” ruins it for me. That’s not a realistic message to receive.

Maybe “Your password cannot be one you’ve used previously”.

Should be: "your password cannot be one of your last 24 passwords"
- Yeah, this is important. Make it a really big number too so that I have to change my password lots of times in a row in order to put it back to what it was. ;)
- Especially for those places that want your password changed every two weeks.
- At my work they wanted better security, and made the rule of minimum 12 characters, must include all sorts of numbers, special characters, etc, no previously used password and it must be changed every month, 3 attempts then the account is locked and you have to call IT.
  
  The result was that people wrote their passwords on post-its on the screen, so it led to worse security overall and they had ro relax the rules.
It follows the vein of some of the password rules and feedback reducing security itself. Like why disallow any characters or set a maximum password length in double digits? If you're storing a hash of the password, the hash function can handle arbitrary length strings filled with arbitrary characters. They run on files, so even null characters need to work. If you do one hash on the client's side and another one on the server, then all the extra computational power needed for a ridiculously long password will be done by the client's computer.

And I bet at least one site has used the error message "that password is already in use by <account>" before someone else in the dev team said, "hang on, what?".
- It's true, most of these rules are harmful, but also most are in common use and accepted, for some reason. I have heard of a password system that had that warning, perhaps even the account, but it was in a softwaregore screenshot context.
Should say by who. :)
It shouldn't be.

But it is.

Fun fact: password controls like this have been obsolete since 2020. Standards that guide password management now focus on password length and external security features (like 2FA and robust password encryption for storage) rather than on individual characters in passwords.

Since 2017 at least; and IIRC years before that; that's just the earliest NIST publication on the subject I could find with a trivial Web search.

https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html

Verifiers SHOULD NOT impose other composition rules (e.g., requiring mixtures of different character types or prohibiting consecutively repeated characters) for memorized secrets. Verifiers SHOULD NOT require memorized secrets to be changed arbitrarily (e.g., periodically). However, verifiers SHALL force a change if there is evidence of compromise of the authenticator.

"Memorized secrets" means classic passwords, i.e. a one-factor authentication through a shared secret presumed to be known to only the right person.
I wouldn’t say obsolete because that implies it’s not really used anymore. Most websites and apps still use validation not too dissimilar from the OP, even if it goes against the latest best practices.
- Yeah, the most recent one for me was creating a password at lemmy.world
- I wouldn’t say obsolete because that implies it’s not really used anymore.
  
  I'm not sure where you heard someone use the word "obsolete" that way, but I assure you that there are thousands if not millions of examples of obsolete technologies in constant and everyday use.
For today's 10,000 who have never seen it, https://xkcd.com/936/ succinctly explains why the whole mixed character types thing isn't favoured.
- I'm still waiting on an XKCD that references #936 with the fact that we soon as we have reliable, functional quantum computing, all of the passwords from before that point in time will be completely and utterly broken. That the only way to make a password that a quantum computer would have a tough time breaking is if it was made by another quantum computer. Unless of course the comic has already been made and I just missed it, which is a complete possibility because this year for me has been utterly crap.
- Except you can run a dictionary attack on that and suddenly it's only 4 variables that are cracked way faster than the first password.
- Except you can run a dictionary attack on that and suddenly it's only 4 variables that are cracked way faster than the first password.
People should be made aware of all the tools available to properly manage tons of passwords. Not even going too deep into "passkey" stuff or any modern shenanigans, but a password manager used to generate random passwords for each separate sites is such a simple step.
Yeah! And nowadays the industry is pushing towards password less authentication. Github just started rolling it out to beta users

Sorry, that password is already in use

BIG red flag. Abort. Abort.

Also I love when they only support certain special characters. So the psuedo random noise created by my password generator won't work until I curate out the unsupported characters.

I was changing my password on a pretty big company website the other day.

The password generated by my password manager kept giving me a http error (500 I think)

I generated a new password and deleted all the special characters other than the obvious ones. Boom, worked first time.

So looks like someone is not sanitising their inputs properly.

I sent them an email so hopefully they will fix.
- I sent them an email so hopefully they will fix.
  
  One can only hope. But based on my experience, they usually do not. I once sent an email to Microsoft telling them that their Microsoft account app had a vulnerability, and I even sent them the XML line they needed to add to their Android Manifest to fix it, and they wouldn't do it because it required physical access to the device to exploit. I mean, that's fair enough, but it was literally one line of code to plug the hole.
  
  They eventually did add that line about 6 years later.
- Password1'); DROP TABLE Passwords;--
Funniest thing was when I registered on a website which parsed the \0 sequence and hence truncated the password in the background unbeknownst to me. This way you could circumvent the minimum length and creare a one character password.
- Once I registered on a website. I used an auto generated password. Next time I tried to log in to the website I was confused that my stored password didn’t work. Requested to change the password, but I used the stored password again. To my surprise, it said the password must be different from the current one.
  
  After a bit back and forth I finally figured it out. Apparently the site had a max length on the password. Any password longer than that is truncated. This truncation wasn’t applied in the login form. Only when creating a password.
So is that maximum length
I always just refresh the password until I get a random one without the characters the randomly choose to forbid 😂

My favorite, though, is:

types in password "Password incorrect" goes to reset password "please enter a new password" types in password "your new password cannot be the same"

That just means you entered it wrong the first time.
- It often means that one could have derived the correct password from the set of rules - but those rules are not shown when asking for the old password
- i have had this happen on some websites occasionally while using my password manager.
- Sometimes it means the page checking the password is following a different ruleset eg. the main page is case sensitive and the change password page isn't. Sometimes it's stuff like the entered password is silently truncated to a fixed number of characters and because of that won't let you log in. Sometimes it's wierd character expansions being passed directly to the password checking routine (& or similar).

For those wanting to play this as a game, there is this wonderfully fiendish website.

https://neal.fun/password-game/

Rule 13 Your password must include the current phase of the moon as an emoji.

I got stuck on the chess one. Used to think I was pretty decent at the game. After a few tries I gave up and tried a few websites that claim to be able to solve it and none found the "correct" move.
- "Chessify" on Android worked for me (also has the advantage that you just take a picture, instead of setting up the position by hand). Unfortunately 1 minute later the game gave me a chicken that I had to keep fed with worm emojis, so I created a stockpile of worms for the chicken and it died of overfeeding. I rage quit the game on the spot.

My favorite is when you forget your password and try to reset it but it cries that you can't use passwords you already used

Mother fucker if I remembered what I used I wouldn't be doing this

The worst part is that if they know that password is already in use.... then they aren't storing their passwords appropriately.

You could store the passwords as hashes and just compare the hashed value.
- yes, but then they are not salted, which is what they should be doing.

Lol, at this point just generate a password for me to save in my bitwarden.

The worst one is when it only supports up to like 16 characters but doesn't tell you so it will only use the first 16 characters and ignore the rest. The next time you need to enter it and get the 64 character password from your password manager it will just say it incorrect and you're left with no idea on why it's wrong.

Holy shit you might have just explained why I have to reset my password every time for a local fast food joints own website
- So secure even you don't know the password. It's like built in MFA.
- This was me on a bank's site till I clued in that I need to shorten my password.
- Why do you have an account for your local fast food joint?!
I can do you one worse.

My banking app password was not case sensitive for many, many years. They finally fixed it a few years back though!
Sometimes there's a limit on the length but it's only imposed by the JavaScript of the website, so I can use my password manager to insert the text directly into the field but I can't actually type it in.

😐
I think walmart.com was or is that way. Took me a while to figure that crap out.
This has happened to me so many times. Frustrating and stupid being belief. Are they hiring 10 year olds to write the html/script? Sheesh.

https://neal.fun/password-game/

Had to give up at rule 20 because I was using a phone.

Spoiler

As much ~~fun~~ pain as that was, highlighting with a touch screen is nowhere near fast enough to put out the fire.

Would love to see a speedrun leaderboard for this, though.
Thank you, I'm thoroughly annoyed.
- Me too.
Fuck. I gave it a try for real this time and hit a permanent game over condition.

spoiler

Apparently you can overfeed Paul

Darn, I wanted to see what came next. Some of those rules were hilarious. But I'm not doing that all again.
- That was my limit too!
I got to the "wordle" one before giving up. jesus lol, nice meme
- It was crone btw.

Looks like someone's been playing the password game https://neal.fun/password-game/

That game made me want to punch.

This is one of the reasons why I am totally dependent on my password manager now.

60 character alphanumeric randomly generated password: sorry, that password is not secure enough, please include a special character

Type "Letmein69!" : perfect, very secure password

Me: 🤨
- Yeah that really bugs me.
  
  Like come one, "Ma5terp!ece" is more secure than "Regain Refinance Clarify Cuddle9"
  
  Maybe in bizaro world.

I've seen this but with a final message of "Sorry, that password is already in use by user about2getOwned@gmail.com."

Login to their account

Change their password to something else

Set your password
- But what if the password you want to set is already in use?

A password prompt should include all criteria upfront so that you can setup your password manager to generate a fitting password.

Getting the criteria or even just partial after you entered one is fucking atrocious.

And that exact text should be available when you're trying to log in.
- Ultimately that makes it easier to break.
  
  How many people do you suppose don't exceed minimum requirements? Once you've got that you can reduce how much you need to generate.
  
  Yeah, you can get that by going to the sign up process, but it generates an extra step that would also increase automation/scraping efforts since it's rarely in the same place.

Password can't exceed 32 characters

Garbage

i wouldn't even mind if it was 32. 32 is a damn strong password.

I've seen as low as 10 digits in the past
- My Wells Fargo password used to be max 8 characters, and when you use the phone you you can basically use the keypad to log in.
  
  So it's basically 8 DIGITS
- 32 is a damn strong password
  
  Not necessarily: only if it's generated properly, and only for the moment - that will change in the next few years.
  
  You do realize that length and symbol type are only 2 out of many other factors that go into a strong password?
You think that's bad, a decade ago I had to use a government-run website that required passwords be exactly 8 characters

Sorry, you must have a special character. Oh... Not THAT special character, it has to be a special special character, that one isn't valid. Ah, no, that one's too long. It should be shorter. It needs to be between 11 and 11.5 characters.

Half the time I now just enter random nonsense until it lets me create an account. Then, when I want to access a website/app again, I just 'forget' my password and reset it to some other random nonsense.

They could cut steps and just ask for the email and send the link with an access token that will authenticate the user directly.
I click Bitwardens generate password button and im done. Also the password is automatically saved.

Recommend it :)

that password is already in use

lmao, "security" moment

Brute force user names instead of password. Big Brian moment
- Large Brian Moment, for real

My new favorite is the minimum time between password changes. My last 2 jobs set it to 24 hours, so IT guy gives you the temp password and you can't change it for 24 hours. But wait, when you try to change it the error you get is "doesn't meet your organization's minimum complexity requirements" which does not help AT ALL and the IT guy thinks you're an idiot because you can't figure out the complexity requirements. What a great feature!

I lent my spouse's mother our apple ID while theirs was toasted. But of course I had to change it first, since OhFuckMeH@rd3rYouFucks was finally an acceptable password for Apple but not for in-laws.

And that's when they tell you what you did wrong. Sometimes they'll reject the password without telling you why, because of some rule they didn't list. For example, I set a password in a parking app (Flowbird) which had an unmentioned restriction against spaces and Swedish letters (dispite targeting the Swedish market). Also, it lets you set a fairly long password, but when you try to log in on their webpage they've set maxlength="32" on the password field. So if you have a longer password you have to edit the DOM and remove that attribute to log in.

This already happened to me in a big service provider (electricity) website. It's infuriating.

We allow memes here?

Bad memes, too. This is some fwd: fwd: fwd shit.
- Boomer memes

I hate that most places don't remind you what the rules of their passwords are if you've forgotten yours. Odds are I'd be able to correctly guess it if I knew.

In what world are passwords unique.

I did once encounter a site in the early 2000s that wouldn't let me use a password because it was already in use by someone else. I was too young at the time to realize how bad that was, but I remember thinking it didn't make sense.
- It MIGHT not be as bad as you think. If the UI was just terrible at communicating and what it actually meant was, "that password is in our database of known compromised passwords," then that would be reasonable. Google does this now too, but I think they only do it after the fact (e.g. you get a warning that your password is in a database of compromised passwords).
The one where LastPass lobbied the government via time travel shenanigans.
Within the tiny, circumscribed world of a single instance.

HorseBatteryStaple

Is there any actual services that check if the password is already in use?

I've heard that some really obscure website even told you who used that exact password, because the CEO of the company owning said website complained for not having it, then the IT company who made the website had to add it. (If you ask: it was some Hungarian-owned website, and not space Karen's 1000IQ idea)

There are definitely services that fuss if you use a password you've used before.

-Try to log in, password incorrect.

-Try to log in, password incorrect.

-Try to log in, password incorrect.

-Weird, ok reset password.

-"Enter new password." Enter the password I've been typing the whole time. "Sorry, you can't use your old password."

-DAMMIT!

I'm pretty convinced this happens because their password validation isn't responding quickly enough and it defaults to "password incorrect."

As a sysadmin, can I just say: BAD PASSWORD: more than 3 consecutive characters of the same class

The number of times I've gone through that only to have it fail without explanation when I exceed the length limit - forcing me to guess if that must be the issue - is FAR higher than it should be.

And fuck any system that doesn't provide the criteria up front.

Also fun is when the field to initially set the password is also character limited and you choose a password that’s longer than the field but don’t notice until you’ve set it and get repeated login failures afterward
- Yeah that nearly makes me want to smash something when it happens. Anyone that silently truncates passwords should NOT do it, or at least truncate the creation AND login forms. Just say the limit and give a error, or handle extra input the way you're supposed to in the enceyption algorithm and hash it to to the correct length. A length limit of say, the amount of bits the encryption key has, like 32/64/128 chracters for 256/512/1024 bit, is reasonable, any other limit is stupid.
- YES, I have hit this too!

This is why one of my passwords is something like forFUCKSAKE123$#!

I know the frustration. Fucked up part is that all that crap makes it least secure not more.

Password1!

It's surprising how many times I have seen this and variations.

The only one that actually reduces security is the length, as it implies it's stored as plaintext.
The rest do improve complexity for cracking.
Only if you write it down on a piece of paper or save it in your notes. Guaranteeing longer passwords with a variety of different symbols does make the passwords stronger though.

That password is already in use by user 'gigachad'.

As a hamster enthusiast, I approve of each password provided by this user.

Fifty fucking cabbages, the 2023 version

My cabbages!

https://youtu.be/zRFDr8Vgp_Q
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/zRFDr8Vgp_Q
  
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

It's best to avoid passwords that include your fetish

If someone gets to know you, they can more easily guess that you're a Hamtaro or Richard Gere fetishist

Richard Gere... Lemmiwinks... Lemmy... Oh god, we're all Richard Gere fetishists, aren't we?

If a password input form asks any of these questions, consider the website or service compromised right from the beginning. The reason for this, is that it means they are not storing salted/hashed passwords and your password will be stored as plain text on their servers. There's no reason for any limitations on a password. In the event of a breach, your password will be visible in any database dumped by a hack. Always makes me wince when a password form complains about password length, as it really should not matter. When you hash a password, it will be stored in the database at a specific string length;

Eg; using sha-1 hashing:

pass123 = 5f1e04b7fc8d7067346b77bdbb6a4d4f9f4abace28f15c2b265c710b120393b2
password321 = 8852ab05d5b32f9efd3dcbf69edcfd65464e64c8e5e8310239871e02380e81b3

All of those things can be verified before storing the password in any way, encrypted or not, and checking them would be a requisite before storing it.

While it's true that they don't have a significant impact on the hash generated, they make it significantly more difficult for anyone to guess your password. It's much easier to guess password321 than something like Or^9L%u&QQ12XxI@. And that has nothing to do with how the password is ultimately stored.
- Of course, requiring at least one symbol or upper case letter etc is a good idea, along with a minimum length. Many websites won't let you use a password longer than a certain amount of characters. The only reason for that limitation is that they are storing the database field as plaintext, and anything longer will not fit into that column.
That’s just not true, all of these things can be achieved without saving the password as plain text
- How is it not true? If a site is saying for example, "password must be less than 20 characters" -- that is purely a limitation based on the size of the database field, which you can only assume it's being adding to that field as plain text. A hash will always be the same length and password length would not matter.
Any site worth its salt (heh) will verify criteria on client for UI reasons, not just in the backend
My favorite password is the string "a", but I never get to use it anywhere due to these ridiculous restrictions 😔 Can you tell me which online services you administer so I can sign up for them and enjoy unfettered use of my favorite password?

In not that many years password cracking capabilities would surpass any reasonable password length and character combination.