Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!news.glorb.com!feed.news.qwest.net!mpls-nntp-01.inet.qwest.net!132.250.1.121.MISMATCH!ra.nrl.navy.mil!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!panix!MIX!Blackbird From: billy@MIX.COM Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: File vault, firmware password, etc Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2014 21:48:56 +0000 (UTC) Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Lines: 26 Message-ID: References: <1lhxa48.1f825xadchjy0N%dcohenspam@talktalk.net> <1lhy0z9.14ckl23s2zi6eN%dcohenspam@talktalk.net> <1lhz47z.6egrs36m8eomN%dcohenspam@talktalk.net> <1li03ur.1x7dzq8typoudN%dcohenspam@talktalk.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix5.panix.com X-Trace: reader2.panix.com 1393969736 20373 166.84.1.5 (4 Mar 2014 21:48:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2014 21:48:56 +0000 (UTC) Xref: csiph.com comp.sys.mac.system:57565 Daniel Cohen writes: > How many characters do you reckon a strong password should have? The > longer the better for strength, but the shorter the better for the > occasions (and there are quite a few of them) when one has to enter an > admin user's password. I don't have a feel for the balance between these > and would welcome opinions. I'm reasonably sure recent OS X versions (from 10.8 or maybe 10.7) allow up to 32 byte passwords. Previous versions stopped at 8, even though you could type more chars in. http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20725 http://diceware.com has lots of useful password info, mostly here - http://world.std.com/%7Ereinhold/dicewarefaq.html#login Somewhere on this site is info about the above move to longer strings, but if you're curious about that, you'll have to find it yourself. Billy Y.. -- sub #'9+1 ,r0 ; convert ascii byte add #9.+1 ,r0 ; to an integer bcc 20$ ; not a number