Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!execu!sequoia!rpp386!jfh
From: jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (John F. Haugh II)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Multiple Root ID's considered evil?
Summary: Bogosity alert.
Message-ID: <17017@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US>
Date: 16 Sep 89 18:05:28 GMT
References: <435@lxn.eds.com> <347@galadriel.bt.co.uk> <14617@haddock.ima.isc.com>
Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II)
Organization: TrishTrash Readers, Inc.
Lines: 22

In article <14617@haddock.ima.isc.com> kencr@haddock.ima.isc.com (Kenny Crudup) writes:
>One day while bored at work, I got out a piece of paper and traced back
>the DES crypt routine for some popular combinations of salt/key. If
>anyone is intrested, I have the passwords that make *, x, X, and 13 X's
>and 13 x's work. Send me E-mail.

All valid passwords encode to 13 characters.  The strings '*', 'x', 'X',
and so on, all have no valid passwords.  In particular, the string '*'
is an impossible valid encryption as '*' is not even present in the output
alphabet since the alphabet is [a-zA-Z0-9./].  This is very important
since '*NO PASSWORD*' is 13 characters long.  It is also an impossible
encryption as both '*' and ' ' do not exist in the above alphabet!  This
is your best bet as a string to put in the password file as it documents
your intentions clearly.

I am wondering if Kenny has the clear-text for the string 'lotsabullshit'
on his notepad ;-)
-- 
John F. Haugh II                        +-Quote of the month club: ------------
VoiceNet: (512) 832-8832   Data: -8835  |  It's not that important,
InterNet: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org         |      it's only USENET.
UUCPNet:  {texbell|bigtex}!rpp386!jfh   +--------------     -- Rich $alz   ----