The Guy Who Invented Those Annoying Password Rules Now Regrets Wasting Your Time
▻http://gizmodo.com/the-guy-who-invented-those-annoying-password-rules-now-1797643987
The man in question is Bill Burr, a former manager at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In 2003, Burr drafted an eight-page guide on how to create secure passwords creatively called the “NIST Special Publication 800-63. Appendix A.” This became the document that would go on to more or less dictate password requirements on everything from email accounts to login pages to your online banking portal. All those rules about using uppercase letters and special characters and numbers—those are all because of Bill.
The only problem is that Bill Burr didn’t really know much about how passwords worked back in 2003, when he wrote the manual. He certainly wasn’t a security expert.
[...]
Simple math shows that a shorter password with wacky characters is much easier to crack than a long string of easy-to-remember words.