When I Sign into my Windows Live Messenger, my password is long about 14 letters,# etc…. and when i click sign in, the # of “*”s in the password box become less about 6 “*”s why does it do that?
This is a (not quite yet standardized) security feature. Password fields are dynamically filled with (most commonly) 8 asterisks no matter what the actual length of the password is. A potential cracker/hacker/menage/whatever has a much easier job on their hands if they already know the number of characters in your password. An automated attempt to hack into an account can be made by trying all combinations with that number of characters. Or somebody who knows you well could even try to guess your password that way. True, this feature is rendered less useful with a 14 character password but how is it really a disadvantage to you? Brute force password crackers have a box for number of characters and you just enter the number and hit go and sit back and wait… In your case, now that I know it is 14 characters, it’ll probably only take a couple weeks instead of who knows how long hehe.
Related Questions
- When I Sign into my Windows Live Messenger, my password is long about 14 letters,# etc.... and when i click sign in, the # of "*"s in the password box become less about 6 "*"s why does it do that?
- Is there not a firefox add-on to integrate MSN Messenger into the web browser?
- How do I change my password on MSN Messenger?
