Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!vsi1!hsv3!mvp
From: mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Random word generator
Message-ID: <3079@hsv3.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jun 90 16:59:52 GMT
References: <1990Jun13.203416.9343@uncecs.edu>
Reply-To: mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt)
Organization: Video 7 + G2 = Headland Technology
Lines: 28

In article <1990Jun13.203416.9343@uncecs.edu> kotlas@uncecs.edu (Carolyn M. Kotlas) writes:
>Does anyone know of an MS-DOS utility that will generate random nonsense
>words of 8 or more characters?  I need to come up with a list of words
>that could be used for passwords on a system that must have the
>password changed frequently...

There was a Unix program posted some time ago for generating words in
"alien" languages, based on some rules.  It is probably available via
FTP from the archives.  If you just want random strings of letters, a
BASIC program could be written in maybe 5 lines that would do it.

                              BUT....

Doing this for passwords is not a good idea, based on the fact that
given a random string of 8 or more characters, the odds are pretty
close to certainty that people ARE going to write them down somewhere,
no matter how strongly they are urged not to.  A better way to do this
is probably to do something similar to the Unix V.3 password quality
checker:  The password must be over a certain length, and must have at
least one non-alphabetic character in it.  You could also run the
attempted password through a spelling checker, and reject any that are
real words.

-- 
"A people who expect to be ignorant        Mike Van Pelt
 and free expect what never will,          Headland Technology
 and never can, be."                       (was: Video Seven)
         -- Thomas Jefferson               ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp