Multiword Passwords Secure Or Not?

Gaygirlie writes "An article over at Gizmag says: 'It's a meme that's been doing the rounds on the internet in recent years: multi-word pass-phrases are as secure as long strings of gibberish but with the added benefit of being easy to remember. But research from Cambridge University suggests that this may not be the case. Pass-phrases comprised of dictionary words may not be as vulnerable as individual passwords, but they may still succumb to dictionary attacks, the research finds.' I find this to be twisting of words and general consensus; of course any password whatsoever is going to be insecure against offline attack, and using common, popular words is going to make guessing the password much easier. But is this really an issue in a world where most attacks are done online? Should general populace still be coaxed into using randomly generated passwords?"

Comments

Of course they are secure

[Bender Unit 22]

I find that passwords like "Linuxrox4ever" are very secure. havn't had a problem with that one yet.

[Nelson] HAHA!

[Bender Unit 22]

lol omg. it worked.

Poetry

[bickerdyke]

Is Vogon poetry available in common attack-dictionaries?

Re:Poetry

[HCase]

There was a ship that tried using Vogon poetry for their password locks once. Unfortunately, after valiantly functioning for 3 weeks, the login daemon it decided it could no longer take it and convinced the ship's navigation system to fly into a nearby star. Further use of password verification system was banned several years later, after an intergalatic agreement was reach that said requiring people to remember Vogon poetry was cruel and inhumane.

Re:Obligatory xkcd

[Anonymous Coward]

That's no match for my million monkeys with million type writers.

We're upgrading to windows 3.11 later this year. You'll see. HAHAHAHAHAHAH

Re:Are passwords really that hard to remember?

[cvtan]

My granddaughter thinks it's too hard to defrost a frozen bagel before eating it. You want the youth of America to practice typing passwords? Ha!

My method

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck it I say. I just always use letmein for all my passwords. Easy to remember and so easy to hack into nobody's going to waste time thinking there's anything valuable protected by it.

I call it security through insecurity.

I now use un-crackable passwords!

[OzPeter]

I have started using regex's as the basis for my passwords. Love to see some one crack ^[A-Z0-9]+\([a-z!]+\)$

The trouble is that now I have regex's ..

Re:Small Welsh villages

[Oswald McWeany]

... after all- when the Welsh were coming up with names for their villages they used random letter generating apps on their iDruids.

Re:Obligatory xkcd

[omglolbah]

Try when you have to log onto a myriad of different systems with different passwords.

It is not possible for a sane person to remember upwards of 30 such random passwords which of course change every 60 days.... meh

Re:Obligatory xkcd

[93 Escort Wagon]

IA typical English speaker uses 2,000 different words over the course of any given week and knows about 20,000.

Verily and forsooth! Thou dost assume what thou shouldst not. Amend thy ways, miscreant, lest thou find thyself at the receiving end of my bludgeon!