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Sunday, June 12, 2011

Truly Random and Complex Password Generator - Part 2 of 2

Permalink: http://bit.ly/1tMM9h2



In the first part of this entry, it was shown how its possible that a password from a normal user would significantly be weaker than that from a complex and randomly generated one.

Note: in the strictest sense, there is no such thing as an uncrackable password. Passwords can be uncrackable only in theory, i.e. the mathematical probability of a password being guessed correctly-- no matter how infinitesimally small the odds are, the possibility of a right guess is always present. Also, passwords are uncrackable only technically-- given enormous resources and time any password can be cracked.

Here is a function for a truly random and complex password generator which is based on the formulas given in the first part of this entry:

DELIMITER $$
DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS `randomPasswordGenerator` $$
CREATE DEFINER=`root`@`localhost` FUNCTION `randomPasswordGenerator`(
  ) RETURNS varchar(64) CHARSET utf8
BEGIN
  DECLARE charCount TINYINT(1) DEFAULT 0;
  DECLARE charDiceRoll TINYINT(2);
  DECLARE randomChar CHAR(1);
  DECLARE randomPassword CHAR(8) DEFAULT '';
  REPEAT
    SET charCount = charCount + 1;
    SET charDiceRoll = 1 + FLOOR(RAND() * 94);
    IF (charDiceRoll <= 32)
    THEN
      SET randomChar = ELT(charDiceRoll,
      '`', '~', '!', '@', '#', '$', '%', '^',
      '&', '*', '(', ')', '-', '=', '_', '+',
      '[', ']', '{', '}', '\\', '/', '|', '?',
      ';', ':', '\'', '"', ',', '.', '<', '>');
    ELSEIF (charDiceRoll >= 33)
      AND (charDiceRoll <= 68)
    THEN
      SET charDiceRoll = charDiceRoll - 33;
      SET randomChar = CONV(
        charDiceRoll,
        10, 36);
    ELSE
      SET charDiceRoll = charDiceRoll - 59;
      SET randomChar = LOWER(
        CONV(
          charDiceRoll,
          10, 36)
      );
    END IF;
    SET randomPassword = CONCAT(randomPassword, randomChar);
  UNTIL (charCount = 8)
  END REPEAT;
  RETURN randomPassword;
END $$
DELIMITER ;

This function will return an 8-character password string. Each character has an equal chance of 1/94 to be generated. Given a short period of time and a normal amount of resources, this qualifies as a theoretical technically uncrackable password. It can be modified to return a longer password length or even a random length, say between 8-12 characters long. A separate user defined function, randomRangePicker(), can be used, if refactoring is desired.



The output can be checked with a simple SELECT statement:

SELECT randomPasswordGenerator();

See the first part of this entry or a similar random string/name generator.

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