A glimpse at hacking mentality

While reading spring 2008 issue of hacker magazine 2600, I had fun with the paper Password Memorization Mnemonic from Agent Zero. The paper in itself is not extraordinary. Agent Zero has reinvented the notion of key derivation. He proposes, in a non formalized way, to use a password generating function for each site that would use the name of the site has parameter. He ends up with passwords in the format <site name><code name><number>. This is a typical trick and you may devise your own function adding for instance special characters.

Is it a good trick? In fact, it is hardly more secure than using the same strong password on all sites. The security relies on the secrecy of the <code name> and of the algorithm (Kerckoff!). And with such a weak algorithm (mandatory weak because it is a mnemonic), if you have the password for one site, it is not difficult to guess the algorithm.

The interesting point comes at the end of the paper. Some sites, for instance mySpace, limit the length of the passwords. This ruins the algorithm. Normal users would propose a derived function that would concatenate to stick in the requested length. But Agent Zero is a hacker, therefore he proposes:
1. Find a similar site with a better password policy.
2. Crack the webpage, system, or server. Show the webmaster or system administrator just how weak their current policy is, thereby spurring them to strengthen it. Admittedly, this is a more extreme-not to mention illegal-road to take, but it has been taken, and it has gotten results.
(Extract)
I love option 2. Definitively another mentality  :Wink:

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