Submitted via IRC for Bytram
We've all been forced to do it: create a password with at least so many characters, so many numbers, so many special characters, and maybe an uppercase letter. Guess what? The guy who invented these standards nearly 15 years ago now admits that they're basically useless. He is also very sorry.
[The 2003 NIST guidance has been replaced by a new version of NIST Special Publication 800-63A, "Digital Identity Guidelines: Enrollment and Identity Proofing Requirements." which is basically a 180° reversal from the original. - Ed.]
Source: http://gizmodo.com/the-guy-who-invented-those-annoying-password-rules-now-1797643987
Additional Coverage at The Wall Street Journal[paywalled]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 18 2017, @12:50PM
This guy is being scapegoated for the incoherent system of so many different user accounts. It's not his fault that OAuth didn't exist 15 years ago, and remains thinly adopted. What's the alternative to trying to strengthen passwords? Having a few-word phrase like XKCD is not a great alternative, given people's limited vocabulary and the pain of typing on mobile devices. And like the guy said, there was no data available when he wrote the standard.