[Pmwiki-users] PmWiki password puzzle

[Joachim Durchholz]

Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
> 
> This becomes easier if I assume that passwords do not have spaces in
> them (i.e., the individual passwords are separated on spaces). Does
> anyone think it's important to allow spaces in passwords (i.e., pass
> phrases)?

Yes. *Any* restriction in the available character set would need an 
explanatory comment on the page for setting passwords.
Any such explanatory comment detracts from what the user wants to do.

If PmWiki were for techies, this wouldn't matter much since techies are 
used to that kind of restriction, but PmWiki is for non-techies after all...

One way out would be to simply drop the spaces from passwords.
For pass phrases, this loses a bit more than a single bit of entropy, 
which is negligible; for passwords, I know of nobody who has spaces in 
them anyway :-)

Of course, the "cleanest" way would be to keep the spaces even if it's 
more difficult to do it that way...

Regards,
Jo