Security expert reveals surprising way to make your password stronger: use emojis

Salamendacious@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 300 points –
Security expert reveals surprising way to make your password stronger: use emojis
nypost.com
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Out of curiosity, what makes you say so?

Edit: Oh. Did a "Wooosh" happen to me right now? Are you being ironic and referring to the XKCD thing about how to make a secure password using words in phrases?

I think OP is conflating the use of emojis in passwords with the use of emojis by the general public.

Yes, it's annoying to read stuff like "Hi 😃😃😃😃 I am Bob ♥️♥️♥️😎😎😎😎," but that doesn't mean that using them in passwords is a bad idea.

Or that "hi 😊 I'm Bob" doesn't express a (subtly) different meaning to "hi, I'm Bob"

Well they have to be the same on different devices, like you log in to Lemmy on your PC and then on your phone. Also sometimes it seems the icons change, or there are new ones and maybe old ones are removed ...

Emojis are standardized. They may look different in different devices, but the code of a "raised hands" emoji will always be the same, just like the code for A is always the same.

Removing old ones could be a problem, though.

What if I am using a device that doesn't support emojis? wouldn't I need to learn the code for each emoji I have used in a password?

That's a good question, and yeah, I guess you'd either avoid using emojis or accept the fact that they're not universally supported.

Having said that, some people use non-ascii characters in their passwords, such as Πwhich is a valid letter in some alphabets, and they'd run onto the same issue.

Yes

But how many modern devices don't somehow support emojis though?

And how many of those you need to enter a password in?

Just like a gun is standardized to a water gun for some and a real gun for others?

Edit: I get your point, ita just if you memorize your password with emoji icons different icons would screw up your tries to log in

If you search for "gun" in your device when selecting an emoji, just pick whatever comes up. Done.

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Because they're a major pain to type, except for the most common ones?

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