After you change a password

[Orrex]

How long does it take before you stop trying to enter the old password at the prompt?

For me, it's about three and a half years. Per password.

[idgiehkt]

1. wow.

all my passwords for everything are all the same. So if anyone ever figures it out I'm screwed. Except for this site, I think I have a funky one for here because I didn't get to choose it. I wrote it down somewhere, so if I log out, oops.

[Lars39]

2. Look in 'Options'...you can change your password to what you want.

[idgiehkt]

3. awesome.

thanks.

[Guy Fawkes]

4. A minute or two.

psst: I can also get the light on the VCR to stop blinking!

[Orrex]

5. You're amazing

The password thing really messes me up, not least because the fifty systems I use at my job all have different password lifetimes and formats (alpha-numeric, alpha-only, alpha-numeric-special, etc.), and we're not allowed to use the same password for different systems, and we're forbidden to write them down anywhere.

But the VCR is no problem.

[Guy Fawkes]

6. Funny thing about password security...

having an alphanumeric password isn't really going to help you. Making your password some strange combination isn't going to help you either. But a password more than 20 characters does do something useful. In Windows, 20+ character passwords are hashed as a default string, making it impossible to get the password except by "brute force." Using something like "[e-mail]" is a lot better than "h3lI0k177y," even though the later has a strange combination of letters and numbers.

In fact, replacing 'o' with '0' does just about nothing. If you must replace an 'o', use something like '()' or '[]'.

[Orrex]

7. The thing that kills me, though

Is that our InfoSec guys warn us about "easily hacked" passwords that can be breached by the brute-force methods you describe.

Excuse me, but if I botch my password three times, I have to call TechSupport to get reinstated. Why does some anonymous interloper get an infinite number of tries, but I get locked out after three? :mad:

That's cool about the default string thing--I didn't know that. Unfortunately, my systems at work are all limited to passwords of 6 to 8 characters.