Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!MCL.UNISYS.COM!perry
From: perry@MCL.UNISYS.COM (Dennis Perry)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: passwords
Message-ID: <8811141801.AA00095@LANAI.MCL.UNISYS.COM>
Date: 14 Nov 88 18:01:06 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 18

Steve, actually the password generator can be tuned to give passwords
with different 'dialects'.  We used the generator at Los Alamos to
generate over 6000 passwords a year and I don't recall any of mine
being the same or even close.

One should note that if passwords are private, and not shared, the saem
passwords can be used by different people and they are just as secure.
This is similar to key for automobiles, there are only so many locks.
My key probable works in a 1000 different cars, or more, but I don't
know which ones.

But, you are correct if you need your own password on a dozen different
machines.   In those cases, I would use a generator to generate my
'key' and than make the locks all the same, or at least minimize the
number of keys I have to carry.  Again, I think that eventually hardware
smard cards are the answer to our lifestyle problems of too many keys.

dennis