OT: PHP, MySQL - need dictionary

message from arizona on 22 Jul 2004

Hi, I know this is off topic, but I also know many of you in here may know
where I can find a dictionary to upload to a server (php4 is installed.)

I have used some scripts to create a members login area, when the user
forgets their password, a random word from dictionary (plus some numbers)
are generated and emailed to the user as a new password. Unfortunately, the
server of one site where we are generating a members area does not have a
dictionary installed. Is there a dict.pl or something else out there that I
can install and use?

I tried searching for dict.pl, but realized there may be something else I
should be searching for, so I decided to ask : )

Thanks
Arizona

Joaquim Lopes replied to arizona on 22 Jul 2004

$auto_pw = substr(md5(time() + rand(5, time())), 0, 8);

This will return the first 8 characters of the string returned by md5. This
does not ensure that the password is unique.
As an alternative you can use

$auto_pw = substr(uniqid(''), 5, 13);

Hope this helps.

Michael Fesser replied to arizona on 22 Jul 2004

.oO(arizona)

I would rather use a generator script (or the shell command 'pwgen' if
available) to create a completely random password. Some of them create
passwords that are still pronouncaable.

Micha

gareth replied to arizona on 22 Jul 2004

There are a large number of dictionaries online that you can use online,
have a look at hacking / cracking sites where they provide many
dictionaries, usually for password attacks :-)

I don`t like giving users random passwords, as they tend to write them down
etc because they can`t remember them, pronounceable ones are much better,
however, because of dictionary attacks you can`t just use normal words as
there easy to crack.

I find the best solution is to combine two words with some random non
alphabetic character in between eg tree$storm. This increases the length of
the password, and also with the inclusion of the non alphabetic character
makes them much harder and much more work to crack as your increasing the
length and the number of characters that can be used.

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