this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2025
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Something that you can actually remember

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[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It's about combinatorics.

On your bikelock you have a 3 character code with and alphabet of 0-9. So 10^3 = 1000 possible combinations.

If you pick 3 random words out of a dictionary with 40k words, there are 40000^3 possible combinations. (64 000 000 000 000).

Depending on how the password is hashed a 1000$ machine might be able to test anywhere from like 10 to 10 000 000 000 000 hashes per second. (100 billion hashes per second are more realistic)

So a 3 word password might be safe for a very very long time or cracked in seconds.

A 4 word password will take 40000 times as long.