The Numerics of Screen Names and Passwords - Talk Root - PC Hardware, Software and Web Development forums

Steve · 12-21-2003, 02:23 PM

Quote:

A lot of talk on AOL is about ‘owning’ screen names. There are people trying to ‘own’ every 3 character screen name. There is no attempt here to get through to newbies; this is merely an essay for intelligent people who also mock the quixotic idea of ‘brute forcing’ a screen name. This essay will discuss briefly just how many screen names there are, and then go in depth about just how hard it would really be to crack a screen name with a completely random password without an exploit.

When America Online first came out, subscribers could make screen names 3-10 characters in length, with that and no leading numbers being the only restrictions[1]. So, when America Online was first out, let’s figure[2] out just how many original screen names there were, with 36 possible characters (a-z, 0-9- screen names are not case sensitive).

Read more...
http://physicspost.com/articles.php?articleId=131

Jerred · 12-22-2003, 09:03 PM

i just read this fast but i remember trying hard to crack the 3 letter screen names which i guess is how i got the handle oso since that what the first one i cracked

Jerred · 12-22-2003, 09:06 PM

quoting from the article...
"If you wanted to brute force just an AOL, it would take a horrendous amount of time. "

Im not sure when he is talking about this but i used to brute force aol sn's when i was like in 8th grade and i think i had about a total of 4000-6000 accounts stolen in 1 year

12-23-2003, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jerred

quoting from the article...
"If you wanted to brute force just an AOL, it would take a horrendous amount of time. "

Im not sure when he is talking about this but i used to brute force aol sn's when i was like in 8th grade and i think i had about a total of 4000-6000 accounts stolen in 1 year

yeah, he doesn't know what he is talking about, he is obiously getting the stupid error when you try a password more then like 3 times or something... but you can get around that.. or used to..

kalam88 · 09-13-2008, 10:54 PM

There is no attempt here to get through to newbies; this is merely an essay for intelligent people who also mock the quixotic idea of ‘brute forcing’ a screen name. This essay will discuss briefly just how many screen names there are, and then go in depth about just how hard it would really be to crack a screen name with a completely random password without an exploit.