passwords someone compared different password requirements for how long they'd take to crack using different methods. some sites require you to use at least one of each of the following: upper case letter, lower case letter, digit, and symbol. like say Ab12Cd@$. which is secure. meaning it'd take 1000 years or more to crack. the reason is it's only crackable by the brute force method. that particular phrase is not likely to be in a dictionary. unless of course you use it everywhere. and of course none of you re-use your passwords. right? right!?!? heh. a dictionary attack looks for fools using words as their password. like panda. swear to almighty god, a manager at the dmv used panda as the super user password. omfg. then she got all pissed off when i called her on it. jeesus. i don't care if you put your information at risk. but crikey mate. did she really think that five letter word was sufficient to protect the identities of every person who's ever had a driver's license in california? anywho. /vent. the interesting result is that a string of all lower case words is just as secure as Ab12Cd@$. and a hell of a lot easier to remember. for example: "i like cats with chicken pox". just as secure. it's also a lot easier to customize a long password. for example: "blogspot likes cats with chicken pox". so you devs out there, when you are deciding what requirements you want to impose on your users, remember "digit symbol upper and lower case" is just as secure as "1@Ulpass". and much more pleasant to work with.  ¶ 8:00 AM