Re: Length vs Complexity

[Ansgar Wiechers <bugtraq () planetcobalt net>]

On 2010-09-16 Mike Razzell wrote:
> Users hear constantly that they should add complexity to their
> passwords, but from the math of it doesn't length beat complexity
> (assuming they don't just choose a long word)?  This is not to suggest
> they should not use special characters, but simply that something like
> Security.Basics.List would provide better security than D*3ft!7z.  Is
> that correct?

No. Mathematically length and complexity are equivalent. At some point
it just is a lot easier to increase the number of tokens than to
increase the size of the token-pool.

Regards
Ansgar Wiechers
-- 
"All vulnerabilities deserve a public fear period prior to patches
becoming available."
--Jason Coombs on Bugtraq

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