XKCD (as usual) makes a very good point – this time about password strength, and I reckon it’s something app developers need to consider urgently. Geeks can debate the exact amount of entropy, but that’s not really the issue: insisting on mixed upper/lower and/or non-alpha and/or numerical components to a user password does not really improve security, and definitely makes life more difficult for users.
So basically, the functions that do a “is this a strong password” should seriously reconsider their approach, particularly if they’re used to have the app decide whether to accept the password as “good enough” at all.
Update: Jeff Preshing has written an xkcd password generator. Users probably should choose their own four words, but it’s a nice example and a similar method could be used by an app to give “password suggestions” that are still safe.
