Re: Some security-related suggestions

[Steve Dorner <[e-mail]>]

>Well the reason for this is that users generally pick easily guessable
>passwords, so if you pick an obscure user name for them, you have in-
>creased the security of their account.

And you've also made 90% of them write their login on a postit and stick it
to their screen, or write it into a macro on their hard drive, and so you
probably have not increased the total security of their account; you've
just increased it in for one form of attack, and decreased it for another.

Code words (be they logins or passwords or whatever) have to be hard to
guess but easy to remember, which means that machine-generated junk (like
"2Yhd%0_") shoved down user's throats is not a great way to increase
security.

This is way off topic, so I'll shut up now.

--
Steve Dorner, Qualcomm Incorporated
 "There's nothing wrong with you that can't be cured
  with a little Prozac and a polo mallet." - Woody Allen