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Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:18:05 -0600
From: Tim Chase <v...@tim.thechases.com>
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CC: Steve Hall <digit...@dancingpaper.com>
Subject: Re: password generator
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On 12/16/11 07:35, Steve Hall wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 3:36 AM, lith wrote:
> The best passwords include the most character possibilities. This
> crazy notion websites/software have of restricting them to certain
> characters or counts only means less security because they are more
> easily guessed.

It's true that larger character sets diminish the ability to 
brute-force the password, but length is also a factor.  And 
there's the ability to remember that password without writing it 
down.  A password that has 25 alphanumeric characters beats the 
pants off an 8-character mixed-printable in terms of time to 
complete.  Steve Gibson (security guy) goes so far as to suggest 
keeping some secret thing you can repeat to pad out your length, 
such as adding 15 ampersands or 8 period-followed-by-comma pairs 
after your password to give it extra length.[1]

That said, if you run vim with +python built in, you can use this 
one-liner:

:python import random as r, string as s, vim as v; v.command('let 
@"="'+(''.join([r.choice(s.printable.replace('"', '')) for i in 
range(10)]))+'"')

which will preload the scratch register with a random password of 
length 10 (in this case) chosen from printable-characters (minus 
the double-quote for simplicity instead of escaping).  You can 
then paste that just as you would anything you've yanked.

-tim

[1] https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm