Hence, the presence of a password limit suggests the used of a fixed length field in a DB that stores values in plain-text. The passwords being stored encrypte

Hence, the presence of a password limit suggests the used of a fixed length field in a DB that stores values in plain-text. The passwords being stored encrypted with a fixed length cyphertext would make 24 a weird number. That would suggest something like AES-192. Without storing the IV in the same field. Moreover, encrypted passwords are worse than hashed passwords. Because it means you need to secure the encryption key. Whereas with a salted hash, there is only brute force for recovering plain-text passwords.