Ex - Hacked accounts, BPD, Obsession... Help /advice please
Discussion
There are 256 Ascii characters used by computers. But for a password, this doesn't matter. A computer doesn't care if a character is a number, a letter, a space or symbol. The number of characters required makes the biggest difference to cracking the password. Using the sledge hammer approach, where every permutation is tried, the total number of permutations is given by:-
(The number of characters in the password)!
So a password of 8 characters has 8! (40,320) answers
That's 8x7x6x5x4x3x2
Easily crackable
A password with 16 characters has 16! (20,922,789,888,000) answers
Still crackable by a fast computer though.
A password with 24 characters has 24! (620,448,401,733,239,000,000,000) answers
Only GCHQ or CIA would probably be able/bother to crack that !
Incidentally, at a million operations a second, it would take 196,742,898 years !
(The number of characters in the password)!
So a password of 8 characters has 8! (40,320) answers
That's 8x7x6x5x4x3x2
Easily crackable
A password with 16 characters has 16! (20,922,789,888,000) answers
Still crackable by a fast computer though.
A password with 24 characters has 24! (620,448,401,733,239,000,000,000) answers
Only GCHQ or CIA would probably be able/bother to crack that !
Incidentally, at a million operations a second, it would take 196,742,898 years !
robinessex said:
There are 256 Ascii characters used by computers. But for a password, this doesn't matter. A computer doesn't care if a character is a number, a letter, a space or symbol. The number of characters required makes the biggest difference to cracking the password. Using the sledge hammer approach, where every permutation is tried, the total number of permutations is given by:-
(The number of characters in the password)!
So a password of 8 characters has 8! (40,320) answers
That's 8x7x6x5x4x3x2
Easily crackable
A password with 16 characters has 16! (20,922,789,888,000) answers
Still crackable by a fast computer though.
A password with 24 characters has 24! (620,448,401,733,239,000,000,000) answers
Only GCHQ or CIA would probably be able/bother to crack that !
Incidentally, at a million operations a second, it would take 196,742,898 years !
Nope. It's not factorial - that would imply that a character can only appear once in a password and there are only as many characters available as there are characters in your password. (The number of characters in the password)!
So a password of 8 characters has 8! (40,320) answers
That's 8x7x6x5x4x3x2
Easily crackable
A password with 16 characters has 16! (20,922,789,888,000) answers
Still crackable by a fast computer though.
A password with 24 characters has 24! (620,448,401,733,239,000,000,000) answers
Only GCHQ or CIA would probably be able/bother to crack that !
Incidentally, at a million operations a second, it would take 196,742,898 years !
It's (number of characters permitted by the parser) ^ (number of characters in your password).
LordGrover said:
I'm not sure that's accurate. Dictionary words are used by these crackers - better off misspelling and making up words? mydoggschmells0ffihs
I call on my vast knowledge of nerd trivia. Even if you know me well, you'll never guess the fantasy world and the character I have chosen. 
Thanks, chaps.
I believe that the first set of deletions came via a keystroke logger on her laptop - I have since obviously locked everything down with double verification where possible.
ajstephe - thank you. That's what I wanted to establish. Will probably be the route I end up going down.
Wildcat - the thought had occurred to me, but I don't want to sink to her level.
TooMany2CVs - she's already published and her media career is starting to go places. She's written the synopsis and already has three publishers sniffing round it, hence my nervouness.
TribalChestnut - almost certainly. <hangs head in shame>
JustinP1 and others - I meant the several other threads by fellow sufferers!
Again, thank you chaps. The ciphering stuff is jolly interesting...
I believe that the first set of deletions came via a keystroke logger on her laptop - I have since obviously locked everything down with double verification where possible.
ajstephe - thank you. That's what I wanted to establish. Will probably be the route I end up going down.
Wildcat - the thought had occurred to me, but I don't want to sink to her level.
TooMany2CVs - she's already published and her media career is starting to go places. She's written the synopsis and already has three publishers sniffing round it, hence my nervouness.
TribalChestnut - almost certainly. <hangs head in shame>
JustinP1 and others - I meant the several other threads by fellow sufferers!
Again, thank you chaps. The ciphering stuff is jolly interesting...
ozzuk said:
Just as a point of interest, I read an article recently on passwords and apparently the ones like you mentioned are amongst the worst to use. Difficult for us to remember and use, but very easy for computers to read. And its computers that break the passwords. Phrases are supposedly much better.
Anyway, nothing to add other than something I found interesting!
It depends, a totally random selection of characters (as provided by a computer) is much harder to break than a phrase. The above xkcd links gives 44 bits of entropy for the phrase, but a single alphanumeric character is roughly 6 bits of entropy. You only need an 8 character password there to better the phrase, 10 or 12 characters easily beat it. The problem is totally random passwords are very hard to remember, hence why people base them on words.Anyway, nothing to add other than something I found interesting!
Also phrase based passwords now have specific password cracking tools now so have become a lot less secure since the xkcd comic.
Also: http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/passphrase...
However platforms like gmail will lock the account after multiple attempts. This isn't a dictionary attack on a password file, it's an attack on a live system with responsive protection.
So random passwords are fine, just not ones your ex can guess. And key loggers obviously make it all a different game.
OP - had you thought of approaching a newspaper with a counter view column if she publishes?
So random passwords are fine, just not ones your ex can guess. And key loggers obviously make it all a different game.
OP - had you thought of approaching a newspaper with a counter view column if she publishes?
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