Spudtater's Journal

Password generation

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:40:39 GMT

I got an email from galaxy_girl today asking about generating passwords for a whole load of individual documents. This set me thinking.

It's easy to generate random passwords in large quantities. But these generally aren't memorable — how easy is it going to be for an average user to remember something like "uJ5we0B"? There's techniques for generating memorable passwords, but these are generally quite long-winded; not really suitable for generating passwords in quantities.

I'm thinking more simple, mass-produced, low-security passwords along the lines of those which AOL used to send out on the back of their trial CDs. They would use paired dictionary words, all in uppercase, like BERRY-BRING, BRAIN-MUNCH or ICHOR-HAPPY.

AOL's approach got me wondering: what actually makes these memorable? Is it that they're real words, or is it that they're pronounceable? I put together a quick script to see what a bunch of pronounceable, but nonsensical, words would look like. The result looks like a mixture of Lewis Caroll and J.K. Rowling — with a scattering of medical-sounding nonsense thrown in for good measure:

hopivels     cholatids    nobuderm     claronilts   pomunits
chizitacks   mulemicks    ponawack     blupivads    gafirons
kupiperts    slunijords   blogamecks   pravozim     glufapurts
betaweld     cremutins    pluzarungs   prosinacks   valopings
pukinilds    flofutalls   losiwelt     dritulorms   boripungs
grojesicks   glewabocks   trebizurt    namiruss     blavokerms
tabamungs    thetipurds   crividum     vokulash     slutifoss
kurumulls    grifuvids    bligeling

This tickled my fancy enough to translate it into JavaScript, and put it up on my webpage. I'm still not sure if these are any good as passwords, but it's an amusing toy.

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Java programmers:

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:15:46 GMT

Which is more evil?

public MyReturnClass<ILikeGenerics> doSomethingAndTimeIt1(MyClass parameter) {
    long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();

    MyReturnClass<ILikeGenerics> result =
        doSomethingComplicatedHere(parameter, this.someInstanceVariable);

    log.debug("Took " + (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime) + "ms");
    return result;
}

public MyReturnClass<ILikeGenerics> doSomethingAndTimeIt2(MyClass parameter) {
    long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();

    try {
        return doSomethingComplicatedHere(parameter, this.someInstanceVariable);
    } finally {
        log.debug("Took " + (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime) + "ms");
    }
}

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Meme, and SQL

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 12:02:23 GMT

Hmmm... that's the same for me as it was for two of my friends list.

*Tap tap*

This thing working?

Never a good sign:

customer/stock/sql/GetCurrentStockValueDaveStyle.sql

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Androidey goodness!

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:50:30 GMT

So, recently I've been quite excited about Android phones, and have been meaning to get one for a while.

In a happy turn of events, my brother, who works for Google (marketing, not programming), has obtained a surplus GooglePhone (specifically, the HTC Dream) which is almost entirely working. Unlocked. Which he just gave to me.

Yays! I have installed the Android Scripting Environment, and now have sh and python shells on my phone. Geekiest... phone... ever.

Coincidentally, the Doctor Who episode that has just come on TV is the one with the Anne-droid.

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Stupid JavaScript tricks

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:32:01 GMT

I have ranted in the past about people who see a nested list and think "that needs to have little pluses and minuses in it to make it dynamically browsable!"

I stand by that rant. 95% of the time it's absolutely unnecessary. However, in some cases it really might come in handy — and in a lot of other cases people just like the shiny. So I thought to myself: now that I know more about JavaScript (and have discovered the magic of Prototype), how could I improve this?

The result is my CollapsibleList utility. No more mucking around with 'onclick' attributes — simply drop in the script and a bit of CSS, call "new CollapsibleList('myListID');", and Robert's your parent's sibling.

Bonus features: javascript calls to expand entirely, collapse entirely, or collapse to a specific level. Magical pluses and minuses automatically keep up.

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Portable programming

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:01:07 GMT

Further to my last post:

Google has introduced an Android scripting environment that lets you code stuff for the Googlephone on the Googlephone. [...] It sits on the Android handset itself, giving coders the power to write and run scripts in Python, Lua, and BeanShell - without help from a PC.

– Google lets you code for Googlephones on Googlephones, The Register, 9th June 2009

Did I mention my next phone was going to be an Android?

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Tech Meetup talks

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:09:49 GMT

Interesting talks at the Tech Meetup last night. By accident or design, one of the talks (given by Kate — hi Kate!) was on developing for the iPhone, the other for Google's new "Android" platform. The contrasts were extremely illuminating.

( Cut for geekery )

Anyway. I think my next phone will be an Android...

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