[Info-vax] password strength (Re: VMS humor)

[Some Dude]

On Saturday, January 2, 2021 at 7:52:45 PM UTC-5, Arne Vajhøj wrote:

> Yes. 8 English words is better than 8 random characters. 
> 

For VMS prior to V8.5, it would have to be 8 short words since the max password length is 32 in most places.

For V9.x, the supported length should be 64 at a minimum but there are issues with access software that still thinks 32 is the max.  For those of you kicking the tires on X86, the longer password support is not yet enabled.

> I very much prefer the English words approach, but it has to be 
> a pretty long sentence.

And if you have PWDMIX set, it doesn't have to be only English words.  If you can type it (and it's not a line control character/terminator)  then you can use it in you password.  There may still be issues with space and tab in passwords.
 
--D