3 ms·
This isn't really true. Its four English words, which is four "choice variables" if you're sampling from an English words character set.
by gburt 15y ago
This isn't really true. Its four English words, which is four "choice variables" if you're sampling from an English words character set.
- blahedo 15y agoFour choice variables each with tens of thousands of possibilities, yes, yielding greater entropy at lower cognitive cost.
- sliverstorm 15y agoPut another way, Oxford lists over 250000 words in English. There are 26 letters. So we have: 250000^4 = 4 x 10^21 combinations vs 26^(~10 characters) = ~10^14 combinations Even counting for capitolization and numbers and symbols, you get something like: 72^(~10) = 4 x 10^18
- Tichy 15y agoExcept that nobody will use the full range of the Oxford dictionary.
- sliverstorm 15y agoYeah, well, even if you use 1/8 of the Oxford dictionary you're still around parity with a 10-symbol password using lower case, capitols, symbols and numbers. At which point we fall back to Randall's observation- one is a whole hell of a lot easier to remember than the other.
- kragen 15y agoThe comic actually had a mouseover punch line about people like you: > To anyone who understands information theory and security and is in an infuriating argument with someone who does not (possibly involving mixed case), I sincerely apologize. You are the "someone who does not". Please do the calculations described in the comic and tell us what your results are.