[techtalk] logins

[Ingrid Schupbach]

On Wed, 27 Oct 1999, Nicole wrote:

> i know that "special characters" cause problems at the head of *nix logins
> (like _ - * $ etc), but do numbers qualify as such a "special character"?

no, numbers shouldn't pose a problem, in fact a very common way of making
a password harder to crack is to replace letters with numbers (so common
and well-known in fact, that some obvious substitutions like "1" for "i"
are no longer much of a security enhancement). characters like "+", "@"
and so forth are also acceptable in passwords.

i would be surprised if the person's all-number password was a problem
because of the use of numerals.  did the person by any chance make the
password too long?  some one i know did this once, and the password would
work sometimes, but not others.  some password programs just ignore or cut
the extra characters off, some won't even let you type in more than the
maximum, but other's aren't that clever.

good luck.

ingrid


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