this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
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privacy
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There are valid reasons to limit password length. For example when a hashing function is used that requires a lot of processing power and the amount of power required to calculate the hash is related to the length. In that (very common) case, a denial of service attack vector is exposed. By simply spamming insane long passwords into a login form for example, the servers calculating the hash get easily overloaded. Even with rate limiting, only a small number of attacking nodes can be used to pull down a site.
So a maximum number of characters for a password is a valid thing to do. HOWEVER the maximum length for this purpose is usually set at something like 2048 or 4096 characters.
There is no excuse for a max password length of 16, that's just terrible.
Sixteen is the minimum where I work. We upped it at the end of last year. Fortunately, we also fixed our password policy to expire annually. It used to be every three months, which leads to recycling.
There's always recycling. Or changing that final character from a 1 to a 2, etc. The human brain just cant handle the complexity otherwise.
Use a couple words instead of letters, you’ll find it easier to remember and not use repeats. Bicycle Uber Pancake 4* should be more secure than some random bunch of letters you’ll forget.
Just use a password manager. No need to remember anything besides your master password. That works for pretty much everything, except I guess computer logins.
Well yes everyone should use a password manager but some people can't load a password manager onto their work computer and therefore are more likely to use non-random passwords. It's easier to remember a passphrase than a random password.
Fortunately, we force everyone to use a password manager at my company. SSO all the things!
We got SSO systems too, unfortunately, there are about 3 of them, lol. The old ADFS, the current Microsoft login (possibly cloud AD, not sure), and our own ID product that we offer to customers.