Creating strong passwords for OS X

May 17, '01 04:25:00PM

Contributed by: robg

OS X brings a new requirement that every user of the system (even if they're the only user of the system) have a password. Although it's tempting to make your password as easy to remember as possible, that's not necessarily the best plan, especially if you have a full time Internet connection. Here are some tips to creating a strong password on any system, with some specific info on OS X.

In case you were not aware, OS X has a limit of eight characters for login passwords. This is not a "hard limit" (ie you can keep typing after eight characters), but rather, a "soft limit". OS X will only pay attention to the first eight characters of your password; anything beyond that is ignored. So even though you think "pastrami3tZ8n" is a secure password, it's really just the word "pastrami", which isn't secure at all.

For the most secure OS X password possible, you should:

I realize this is truly basic information, but with so many people now having full-time internet connections, the importance of a good password cannot be understated!


NOTE: The info above regarding the eight character password limit is no longer true. See the comments; it has been removed...

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