Re: SSH preferences

[Nate Reindl <reindlnr@apci.net>]

Quoting mike808 <mike808@users.sourceforge.net>:

I'm not a stereotypical 'heavy' SSH user; likewise, I don't use any of the
available facilities except SSH and scp.  I'm never on the same machine, either,
so moving things all over gets *really* annoying after awhile...

> Lots of hard-to-remember quality passwords/passphrases is a real PITA.

That's probably a Good Thing if you think about it...

What're the chances of becoming a splatter on the nearest wall with a rocket
launcher (*drools*... Quake...) if you have passwords like that?  As long as you
don't put any obvious things in your passphrases, I'd say next to nil.

And, no, I'm not saying that strong passwords will make you not suck ass at Quake.

> Rotating them regularly is even moreso.

See above.

> Work, email, various shell accounts, servers, web accounts (vendors), online 
> banking, etc. I must have 20 or 30 by now. And I don't care for one to be 

I have at least that many only in shell accounts.  Wow.

> able to use the same password to gain access to my other accounts. Who knows 
> what some vendor will do (or happen) with my userid/password? Especially if
> some don't use https or encryption for logins? I don't want my Sun support 

The most that can happen is being compromised, which is a big deal for some
accounts, notably mail, shell, banking, and other things of the like.

The most a vendor could do is sell it, of course.  I doubt, really, that any
respected vendor (e.g., Sun or RedHat) would sell your information, however.

> Every Tom, Dick, and Harry website I go to wants me to set up a "profile" 
> where maybe I get the same userid I use elsewhere (maybe not, it's a crap 
> shoot), and yet another password. Many have conflicting requirements - some 
> allow punctuation, others don't. Or they have varying minimum length 
> requirements. It's a CF'd system all around.

I wish people would just stick to the *nix password standard and leave it alone.
 Eight characters, all the punctuation you'll ever need, and then some, but
nooo... they have to obfuscate it in every damned way imaginable, and it irks
me.  Even you too, it seems.

> I see the appeal of the MS Passport system. What to do?

Eight characters.  At least.  Probably at most as well, but that's just me. 
Jumble around numbers, capital letters, and lowercase letters around and ditch
the punctuation on those that don't allow it; this is what I usually do in such
cases.

> () Join the ASCII ribbon campaign against HTML email and Microsoft-specific
> /\ attachments. If I wanted to read HTML, I would have visited your website!
> Support open standards.

Damn straight.  F?ckin' Microsoft-induced bastid things...  Don't they know that
ASCII art, when done properly, is actually really pretty?

--
Nate Reindl, demented ..thing with dualhead on desk and serverfarm in closet.
> In a literary light, if *nix is the Great Novel, Perl is the Cliff's Notes.

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