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.NET musings, news, and product reviews courtesy of the Averetek development team.Thursday, June 15, 2006
Generating Unambiguous Codes
An end user wrote to customer support for help because she couldn't get access to a site with the authorization code that had been generated for her.
The code she received was 0WUGOS. The first character is a zero, the fifth is the letter O. Depending on the font being used, they can be hard to tell apart. How much do you want to bet she was typing the letter O for both?
When writing a routine to generate a code that somebody will have to type in, it's a good idea to throw out any characters that could be easily mistaken for another. The letters I and O and the numerals 1 and 0 are the most likely suspects. If you really want to avoid any possible confusion, throw out U and V too.
The code she received was 0WUGOS. The first character is a zero, the fifth is the letter O. Depending on the font being used, they can be hard to tell apart. How much do you want to bet she was typing the letter O for both?
When writing a routine to generate a code that somebody will have to type in, it's a good idea to throw out any characters that could be easily mistaken for another. The letters I and O and the numerals 1 and 0 are the most likely suspects. If you really want to avoid any possible confusion, throw out U and V too.
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Great suggestion! I do a lot of sys admin stuff for random family and friends, who don't always recognize the value of strong passwords. They often get confused with numbers in the password.
Of course, setting passwords like h0zIl@359oOpbx!llL for home computers could be considered a tad abusive... ;)
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Of course, setting passwords like h0zIl@359oOpbx!llL for home computers could be considered a tad abusive... ;)
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