From: Alan McKinnon [mailto:alan.mckin...@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 5:48 PM
> On Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:08:04 -0500
> Michael Mol <mike...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm seriously unconvinced that concatenating words significantly
> > increases the difficulty of the problem. Just as a mentalist will
> > presume you're thinking about '7', your average demographic would
> > probably draw from a small pool of source words, even latching on to
> > catchphrases and other memes. You're likely to see
> > "steamingmonkeypile", "nyanyanyan", "dontsaycandleja-" and
> > "hasturhasturhast-" used more than once, for example. I'd give a
> > better list of likely results, but I don't want to run too far afoul
> > of good taste in public posting. :)
>
> I agree. Longer pass{words,phrases} only increases the difficulty of the
> problem, but not significantly so.
After I read the aforementioned xkcd comic, my main question was how he
defined the various bits of entropy for each "thing" done to a password.
That seemed to be a crucial determining factor in why the "common words"
password appeared so much harder than the "goofy gibberish" one. Some seemed
more obvious to me than others.
I'm also curious, using the latest modern password-cracking techniques, if
his assessment really is accurate. As in, which of the following two
passwords would take longer to crack:
#purpl3.R$!n#
dovesymbolcarprince
--K
