Password Rules Are Bullshit
I agree with almost everything but the he loses me towards the end:<p>> I had a bit of a sad when I realized that we were perfectly fine with users selecting a 10 character password that was literally "aaaaaaaaaa". In my opinion, the simplest way to do this is to ensure that there are at least (x) unique characters out of (y) total characters.<p>Isn't that exactly what you're complaining about with your arbitrary password restrictions to begin with?<p>I mean, I can imagine that a clueless user might have the illusion of safety if they're using something like "1q2w3e4r5t" but if I use "aaaaaaaaa" as a password on a website I know full well what I'm doing. So why even bother?<p>I think there are two possible ways to look at this problem from a service provider perspective:<p>- if the user getting their password stolen is a bad thing <i>for you</i> (i.e., you're a bank or something like that, and getting an account compromised will put you in trouble), then IMO the only satisfactory solution is to impose a password to the user. In effect these ridiculous password requirements are exactly that, except less convenient and secure. Cut to the chase and say "your bank password is Axei5aoc0i, write it down somewhere safe".<p>- if the user getting their password stolen is not a problem for you because it's not your responsibility to handle these issues (like a hacker news account for instance) then just let the user pick whatever they want and deal with the consequences. If they care enough about it they'll care enough to pick a decent password. At most if you really want to be friendly give an indication that a password might be weak, but please don't disallow it.