We’ve all been there.
My absolute favourite is when your password is too long but they don’t tell you that, I guess because they weren’t expecting it. It only causes a hitch when you later try to login and it doesn’t let you …
My favorite, though, is:
types in password “Password incorrect” goes to reset password “please enter a new password” types in password “your new password cannot be the same”
That just means you entered it wrong the first time.
It often means that one could have derived the correct password from the set of rules - but those rules are not shown when asking for the old password
Exactly this. I want to normalize showing the password requirements when you don’t immediately get the password - if you made me jump through hoops the first time, at least remind me what they were!
i have had this happen on some websites occasionally while using my password manager.
Sometimes it means the page checking the password is following a different ruleset eg. the main page is case sensitive and the change password page isn’t. Sometimes it’s stuff like the entered password is silently truncated to a fixed number of characters and because of that won’t let you log in. Sometimes it’s wierd character expansions being passed directly to the password checking routine (& or similar).
For those wanting to play this as a game, there is this wonderfully fiendish website.
https://neal.fun/password-game/
Rule 13 Your password must include the current phase of the moon as an emoji.
I got stuck on the chess one. Used to think I was pretty decent at the game. After a few tries I gave up and tried a few websites that claim to be able to solve it and none found the “correct” move.
“Chessify” on Android worked for me (also has the advantage that you just take a picture, instead of setting up the position by hand). Unfortunately 1 minute later the game gave me a chicken that I had to keep fed with worm emojis, so I created a stockpile of worms for the chicken and it died of overfeeding. I rage quit the game on the spot.
A password prompt should include all criteria upfront so that you can setup your password manager to generate a fitting password.
Getting the criteria or even just partial after you entered one is fucking atrocious.
And that exact text should be available when you’re trying to log in.
Ultimately that makes it easier to break.
How many people do you suppose don’t exceed minimum requirements? Once you’ve got that you can reduce how much you need to generate.
Yeah, you can get that by going to the sign up process, but it generates an extra step that would also increase automation/scraping efforts since it’s rarely in the same place.
It wouldn’t really increase the effort much. A human would have to go through the process once, then just pass those requirements off to the script. The initial setup isn’t something you typically hand off to automation.
The number of times I’ve gone through that only to have it fail without explanation when I exceed the length limit - forcing me to guess if that must be the issue - is FAR higher than it should be.
And fuck any system that doesn’t provide the criteria up front.
Also fun is when the field to initially set the password is also character limited and you choose a password that’s longer than the field but don’t notice until you’ve set it and get repeated login failures afterward
Yeah that nearly makes me want to smash something when it happens. Anyone that silently truncates passwords should NOT do it, or at least truncate the creation AND login forms. Just say the limit and give a error, or handle extra input the way you’re supposed to in the enceyption algorithm and hash it to to the correct length. A length limit of say, the amount of bits the encryption key has, like 32/64/128 chracters for 256/512/1024 bit, is reasonable, any other limit is stupid.
YES, I have hit this too!
password generator.
This is why one of my passwords is something like forFUCKSAKE123$#!
Sorry, you must have a special character. Oh... Not THAT special character, it has to be a special special character, that one isn't valid. Ah, no, that one's too long. It should be shorter. It needs to be between 11 and 11.5 characters.Half the time I now just enter random nonsense until it lets me create an account. Then, when I want to access a website/app again, I just ‘forget’ my password and reset it to some other random nonsense.
They could cut steps and just ask for the email and send the link with an access token that will authenticate the user directly.
I click Bitwardens generate password button and im done. Also the password is automatically saved.
Recommend it :)
That password is already in use by user ‘gigachad’.
This is one of the reasons why I am totally dependent on my password manager now.
60 character alphanumeric randomly generated password: sorry, that password is not secure enough, please include a special character
Type “Letmein69!” : perfect, very secure password
Me: 🤨
Yeah that really bugs me.
Like come one, “Ma5terp!ece” is more secure than “Regain Refinance Clarify Cuddle9”
Maybe in bizaro world.
Sorry, that password is already in use
BIG red flag. Abort. Abort.
Also I love when they only support certain special characters. So the psuedo random noise created by my password generator won’t work until I curate out the unsupported characters.
I always just refresh the password until I get a random one without the characters the randomly choose to forbid 😂
So is that maximum length
I was changing my password on a pretty big company website the other day.
The password generated by my password manager kept giving me a http error (500 I think)
I generated a new password and deleted all the special characters other than the obvious ones. Boom, worked first time.
So looks like someone is not sanitising their inputs properly.
I sent them an email so hopefully they will fix.
Password1’); DROP TABLE Passwords;–
Robert’); DROP TABLE Students;–
I sent them an email so hopefully they will fix.
One can only hope. But based on my experience, they usually do not. I once sent an email to Microsoft telling them that their Microsoft account app had a vulnerability, and I even sent them the XML line they needed to add to their Android Manifest to fix it, and they wouldn’t do it because it required physical access to the device to exploit. I mean, that’s fair enough, but it was literally one line of code to plug the hole.
They eventually did add that line about 6 years later.
It boggles sometimes.
I remember about 2015 (?) In the vicinity anyway, PayPal has a 12 character MAXIMUM on their passwords.
PayPal, you know the place where you can literally transfer all the money. A 12 character MAXIMUM
I emailed them to suggest they change this requirement. And they replied saying that 12 characters was sufficient if you used special characters and numbers.
Glad they have finally changed it now.
My bank has an 8 character limit. Not minimum, limit
God thats horrible
Funniest thing was when I registered on a website which parsed the \0 sequence and hence truncated the password in the background unbeknownst to me. This way you could circumvent the minimum length and creare a one character password.
Once I registered on a website. I used an auto generated password. Next time I tried to log in to the website I was confused that my stored password didn’t work. Requested to change the password, but I used the stored password again. To my surprise, it said the password must be different from the current one.
After a bit back and forth I finally figured it out. Apparently the site had a max length on the password. Any password longer than that is truncated. This truncation wasn’t applied in the login form. Only when creating a password.
My new favorite is the minimum time between password changes. My last 2 jobs set it to 24 hours, so IT guy gives you the temp password and you can’t change it for 24 hours. But wait, when you try to change it the error you get is “doesn’t meet your organization’s minimum complexity requirements” which does not help AT ALL and the IT guy thinks you’re an idiot because you can’t figure out the complexity requirements. What a great feature!
Password can’t exceed 32 characters
Garbage
i wouldn’t even mind if it was 32. 32 is a damn strong password.
I’ve seen as low as 10 digits in the past
32 is a damn strong password
Not necessarily: only if it’s generated properly, and only for the moment - that will change in the next few years.
You do realize that length and symbol type are only 2 out of many other factors that go into a strong password?
Ok, fair, not all 32 digit passwords will be secure.
11111111111111111111111111111111 is not secure, but I was trying to imply, in a properly generated password, 32 digits long is very secure.
but I was trying to imply, in a properly generated password, 32 digits long is very secure.
I understand, and I think you make a valid point as far as the discussion is concerned.
It’s unfortunately still a little more complicated than that, though.
Like I said, there’s more to a password than length and symbol type.
Even something like cF*+@aXbIdFHje2vZiU-1 is less secure than if it were generated by a good PRNG.
D0@ndro!dsDr@3@m0f3l3ctr!cSh33p? is also insecure, though it might have been considered secure 4-5 years ago.
You see what I’m saying?
Then of course there’s hash algorithms and how those are used to authenticate the passwords themselves, etc.
My Wells Fargo password used to be max 8 characters, and when you use the phone you you can basically use the keypad to log in.
So it’s basically 8 DIGITS
Wow, super secure!
You think that’s bad, a decade ago I had to use a government-run website that required passwords be exactly 8 characters
Is there any actual services that check if the password is already in use?
I’ve heard that some really obscure website even told you who used that exact password, because the CEO of the company owning said website complained for not having it, then the IT company who made the website had to add it. (If you ask: it was some Hungarian-owned website, and not space Karen’s 1000IQ idea)
There are definitely services that fuss if you use a password you’ve used before.
-Try to log in, password incorrect.
-Try to log in, password incorrect.
-Try to log in, password incorrect.
-Weird, ok reset password.
-“Enter new password.” Enter the password I’ve been typing the whole time. “Sorry, you can’t use your old password.”
-DAMMIT!
I’m pretty convinced this happens because their password validation isn’t responding quickly enough and it defaults to “password incorrect.”
I hate that most places don’t remind you what the rules of their passwords are if you’ve forgotten yours. Odds are I’d be able to correctly guess it if I knew.
