Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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How secure does your computer user login password need to be and why? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm aware of what constitutes a decent password, but typing in 15-30 random characters each time I lock my computer screen is starting to get a bit taxing.

How secure does my user password really need to be and what are the threats to it? Does the same apply to a root-enabled user as a "regular" user when it comes to password security?

For context, my threat model doesn't need to account for real people breaking in and accessing my computer, the damage would be very contained.

Bonus question - what are the risks of having a weak password on a root user on a spare laptop on the same network as my main device that is used exclusively for web browsing? Thanks.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

This is an interesting table for password cracking based on password hash..

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I was wondering why 1 year was in the red category, but then I realized that that time could decrease quite a bit over time with technological advances

EDIT: typo

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

The chart also doesn't specify what hardware the calculation is based on. If it's "1 year to crack for your average desktop PC", then a server farm will do so in minutes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

The hash doesn't matter from a device perspective. The OS enforces a retry delay and a person would need to use a keyboard.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

This is for random characters but "interestingpassword" will get cracked by a dictionary attack almost instantly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Lots of hand waving in this, but its good for relative comparison