Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!ox.com!math.fu-berlin.de!fauern!unido!mikros!mwtech!martin
From: martin@mwtech.UUCP (Martin Weitzel)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: Uninvertible passwd encryption (was: Re: Kmem security)
Message-ID: <1091@mwtech.UUCP>
Date: 11 Apr 91 00:38:26 GMT
References: <1991Mar19.231715.28594@comp.vuw.ac.nz> <1991Mar20.061813.17416@agate.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: martin@mwtech.UUCP (Martin Weitzel)
Organization: MIKROS Systemware, Darmstadt/W-Germany
Lines: 14

In article <1991Mar20.061813.17416@agate.berkeley.edu> c60b-1eq@e260-1c.berkeley.edu (Noam Mendelson) writes:
....
>The salt [of an UNIX password] is a two-character
>key which can contain the characters a-z, A-Z, and 0-9, and it is chosen
>randomly by UNIX.

I know that it is nit picking - but to be exact: The salt can have 4096
different values. To encode these with two characters, you must have 64
distinct values for each character, where the mentioned ones only sum up
to 62.

(The two missing ones are "/" and ".", which can also appear in the salt.)
-- 
Martin Weitzel, email: martin@mwtech.UUCP, voice: 49-(0)6151-6 56 83