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submitted 10 months ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[-] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 11 points 10 months ago

All cool and dandy, until you have to type that random 50 letter string on your TV.

[-] falsemirror@beehaw.org 12 points 10 months ago

Many PW managers let you generate passphrases, which are all around better than random strings. Length is the most important factor so

finance-caffeine-utopia-redress-unseen

Is way stronger and easier to remember (and type) than

Fl7$j4FWw)&5O

[-] Myaa@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago

Huh, TIL. I had no idea that was an option but that's super useful for things I need to type in on a device with no keyboard, or even things I can't access my password manager for. Thanks for the protip there!

[-] esaru@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

And pass phrases are faster to type and with less typos even though they need more characters than passwords to be the same secure.

[-] Murkhat@feddit.de 2 points 10 months ago

Is it really safer? I mean when trying to bruteforce a password, one would have to make a guess whether it's a passphrase or not. But if you decided to check for pass phrases, wouldn't the one you posted be cracked in 5 times the amount of words in that dictionary? I'm not sure how large the vocabularies of the generators are, but I would guess a random 17 char password might be safer than a 5 phrases password?

[-] Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org 5 points 10 months ago

but I would guess a random 17 char password might be safer than a 5 phrases password

And you would be very wrong about that. A 5 phrase password has entropy. "finance-caffeine-utopia-redress-unseen" is 28 characters. If you add in a different symbol between the words and add a number somewhere, this password becomes incredibly difficult to brute force.

I'll let xkcd explain it better.

[-] Murkhat@feddit.de 1 points 10 months ago

Youre right,different separators, numbers and even capital letters change my theory alot

[-] Areldyb@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago

It'd be dictionary length to the fifth power, not times five.

[-] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You don't need to make it that long.

And also most TVs or whatever you're streaming with has a way to type from your phone nowadays. Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV, heck I think even Xbox.

It's kinda nice on Apple TV your phone will suggest autofill passwords for the TV, even from theirs party password managers like Bitwarden.

[-] abbadon420@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

Android tv's arent that old. 10 years max. 5 years since it's affordable for most people. Is it unreasonable to own a 5 year old non-smart tv? I think not. I think it's weird that so many people assume everyone owns a smart tv.

[-] Evkob@lemmy.ca 6 points 10 months ago

In what scenario would you need to type in a password on a non-smart TV though? Parental lock?

[-] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You're not wrong but in what context would you be putting in passwords on a non-smart device

Also it's not just smart TVs. You can hook up streaming sticks and boxes and game consoles to anything with an HDMI port

[-] recreationalplacebos@midwest.social 5 points 10 months ago

I had to do that recently, ended up being easier to just temporarily change the password to something short on a pc, then change it back after.

[-] parpol@programming.dev 3 points 10 months ago

As long as you generate the PW with numbers and special characters included, a 14 character password will take over a hundred years to crack.

50 is so unnecessarily large, it closes in on the age of the universe amount of time needed to brute force.

[-] jarfil@beehaw.org 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

For symmetric keys, since they cannot be weakened using quantum computing, their strength can be assessed by their bit-equivalent amount of entropy:

  • 40 bit or less - easily breakable
  • 64 bit - not so easy, but doable
  • 128 bit or more - basically unbreakable

Those are equivalent to, respectively:

  • 0-9 - 12, 19, 38 characters
  • a-z - 9, 14, 28 characters
  • a-z0-9 - 8, 12, 25 characters
  • A-Za-z0-9 - 7, 11, 22 characters
  • A-Za-z0-9+special - 7, 10, 21 characters

Moral of the story: drop the special characters, and even the numbers... and even the uppercase. A 30+ character long all-lowercase pass phrase, is already unbreakable.

Check @falsemirror@beehaw.org:

finance-caffeine-utopia-redress ~~-unseen~~

...is already over 128 bits.

PS: Correct horse battery staple

this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
87 points (100.0% liked)

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