On Mon, 11 May 1998, Mark A. Heilpern wrote: ->The standard *nix crypt() function only operates on the first 8 characters of ->your password; anything beyond that is noise and not looked at. (Tho, I have ->heard of at least one crypt() library function that was significant to 16 ->characters.) Also, if I'm not mistaken, characters that have the high bit ->turned ->on (not normally typable without ALT-xxx sequences) will have the high bit ->stripped before encryption. Which still doesn't matter, because crypt() returns a 13 character long string. And MAX_PWD_LENGTH is used for the binary files, thus stripping two characters off of the encrypted password. This is most certainly a security flaw, but not--in all likelihood--a "risk." Allow me to explain. There is a chance that two different strings, encrypted using the same key, will differ _only_ by those last two characters which are stripped off by Circle. However, the chances of someone being able to exploit such a conflict--to the best of my estimations--are extremely slim. In fact, the chances are so small that they may as well be considered non-existent. I still, however, suggest that it be fixed (and, according to George, it may be in 3.1). Remember: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. -dak : Can go wrong. +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Ensure that you have read the CircleMUD Mailing List FAQ: | | http://democracy.queensu.ca/~fletcher/Circle/list-faq.html | +------------------------------------------------------------+
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