{"id":1754,"date":"2010-03-12T01:00:37","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T09:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/?p=1754"},"modified":"2010-03-12T01:00:37","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T09:00:37","slug":"on-password-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/on-password-restrictions\/","title":{"rendered":"On Password Restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Websites should list their password restrictions on their login pages. Sometimes I run into the following problem:<\/p>\n<p>I try to use a password generated by my &#8220;standard model&#8221; &#8212; ie, a standard prefix depending on the nature of the site and some salt determined by the website itself. However, some sites have stupid rules on their password requirements. In real life, I have encountered a wide variety of password requirements:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A requirement of an exactly 6-character password<\/li>\n<li>A prohibition on &#8220;special characters&#8221; like any of !@#$%^&amp;*()+=&gt;&lt;\/?{}[]|\\\/.<\/li>\n<li>A requirement for a special character that happens to be one of !@#$%^&amp;*()<\/li>\n<li>A requirement for numbers, uppercase, and lower case in the password<\/li>\n<li>A requirement for two sets of letters and numbers in the password &#8212; ie, fit the regex \/([a-zA-Z]+[0-9]+){2}\/<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When my standard model password doesn&#8217;t fit into one of the more esoteric requirements, I have to modify it to fit. Fortunately, I find that on this subject at least, I tend to think the same way over time, so, given the standard model and a set of constraints, I will usually come up with the same password. However, it is uncommon for websites to list their password constraints on the log-in page. Therefore, I will usually try the standard model password first, and only when that fails twice (in case I mistyped the first time), and I&#8217;m down to one more try, do I realize that this website might be &#8220;special.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Then I have to go to the trouble to find out what the password requirements are. This is not difficult &#8212; usually it involves clicking the &#8220;sign up button&#8221; and reading a little bit &#8212; but it does take some time and it is very annoying. Listing the password requirements at the login screen would make for a much better user experience (since it is so easy to find this information, not displaying it on the login screen can&#8217;t be interpreted as a security measure either).<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the real solution is for websites to get rid of their inane password requirements, so I never have to deviate from the standard model.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Websites should list their password restrictions on their login pages. Sometimes I run into the following problem: I try to use a password generated by my &#8220;standard model&#8221; &#8212; ie, a standard prefix depending on the nature of the site and some salt determined by the website itself. However, some sites have stupid rules on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-1754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everything","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1754"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1756,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754\/revisions\/1756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcanius.silverfir.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}