From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Oct 23 23:19:12 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from venus.GAIANET.NET (venus.GAIANET.NET [207.211.200.51]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4C71814DF6 for ; Sat, 23 Oct 1999 23:19:11 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from vince@venus.GAIANET.NET) Received: from localhost (vince@localhost) by venus.GAIANET.NET (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id XAA48181; Sat, 23 Oct 1999 23:19:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from vince@venus.GAIANET.NET) Date: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 23:19:01 -0700 (PDT) From: Vincent Poy To: cjclark@home.com Cc: FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD 3.3-RELEASE passwd issue In-Reply-To: <199910240250.WAA39167@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sat, 23 Oct 1999, Crist J. Clark wrote: > > > I believe the maximum number of characters you can type in is 128. > > > However, for DES I know only the first 8 characters are > > > significant. From a _really_ quick look at crypt_md5() source, it > > > looks like it uses 16. Is that right? I am sure MD5 uses more. > > > > Hmmm, I think MD5 does use more except is there a reason to not > > install DES at all? > > I had a hard time parsing this sentence. Is there a period missing > after the "execpt?" No... I was asking like would the other have any advantages. > MD5 does use more characters. MD5 is unquestionably the more secure > option for that reason and others. DES has U.S. export restrictions > attached to it (the reason the MD5 password method was developed at > all). That's a "reason" for people outside the U.S. not to use it, > they cannot get it in the standard FreeBSD distribution. That's true but there is a non-US DES that's not subject to the export restrictions for FreeBSD. > As for whether someone in the US would prefer to or not to use it, the > only reason to use DES is for compatibility with other systems that > only use DES (e.g. my machines using NIS at the office fall into that > category). Other than that, I really don't know of a good reason. Hmmm, or maybe the reason of certain software needing it. Cheers, Vince - vince@MCESTATE.COM - vince@GAIANET.NET ________ __ ____ Unix Networking Operations - FreeBSD-Real Unix for Free / / / / | / |[__ ] GaiaNet Corporation - M & C Estate / / / / | / | __] ] Beverly Hills, California USA 90210 / / / / / |/ / | __] ] HongKong Stars/Gravis UltraSound Mailing Lists Admin /_/_/_/_/|___/|_|[____] To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message