On 8/17/2011 13:18, Warp wrote:
>    For a very long time unixes used only 8 character passwords at most.

The way you do a cryptographic hash is to take a symmetric key algorithm and 
use the password as the key and encrypt a constant. The result is a hash. 
(Of course, there are other ways, but given (say) DES, this is a way to use 
DES as a hash.)

The original unix cyrpt (and later DES) were used this way to generate 
password hashes, and that's the reason UNIX tossed more than 8 characters.

Just for general edification. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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