Simple Password Generator
Here is a real word password generator that selects words from Robelle's spelling dictionary to use as passwords. Say you want to generate 6-letter passwords. Suprtool's string pattern match can give you a list of 6-letter words sorted in alphabetical order.
Although Suprtool does not have a function that randomly selects from a list of words, it can select words based on these not-so-obvious algorithms:
- reorder the list based on letter values (step 2)
- select words based on letter values (step 2)
- select every nth word (step 3)
input maincomm.spdata.robelle
def word,1,24
if word=="??????~"
{pattern match on 6 characters followed by a space}
out word6
xeq
Randomize the list by converting one of the letters to an integer and sorting
on it. This task also reduces the number of words in the list by comparing the
integer representation of two letters.
def i,6,2,int {1st num can range from 1..n-1}
def j,5,2,int {1st num can range from 1..n-1}
def k,3,2,int {1st num can be 1..n-1, but 2..n-2 is better}
in word6
if i>j {ij}
sort k
ext word
purge word6a
out word6a
xeq
Make a selection from the file--in this case every 43rd record to a maximum
of 50 records.
in word6a(#43)
numrecs 50
purge passwd
out passwd
xeq
Because these passwords come from a list of real words, you should review the
final list to eliminate easy-to-guess words.
Another method - harder-to-guess passwords
In the section above, we showed you a Suprtool task that extracts a random list of n-letter words to use as passwords. Of course, some real-world situations require slightly harder-to-guess passwords that are also only slightly more difficult to remember. This time we will use a Suprtool task to simulate the telephone-book algorithm for generating passwords: open the phone book to a random page, point at a name, and use the first four letters of the name plus the last four digits of the phone number as the password (e.g., smit3681).
- Select words greater than four letters. In this example, we use words with
6 letters or more.
input maincomm.spdata.robelle define word,1,24 if word == "??????@" {n = number of ?'s, 5..16 } :purge words output words xeq - Extract the first four letters and make up a "phone number" by treating
part of the word as numeric data. The list of "passwords" is randomized by
sorting on the nondisplayed portion of the word (i.e., beyond the first
four letters).
input words define word4,1,4 {4 letters} define i,2,2,int {start pos can range from 1..n-1} define j,4,2,int {start pos can range from 1..n-1} define k,6,2,int {start pos can range from 5..n-1} define digits,1,4,display {4 digits} sort k extract word4 extract digits = (i * j) mod 10000 :purge passwds output passwds xeqThe example shows fields i, j, and k starting at byte positions 2, 4, and 6, but you can choose any starting positions you like within the record. - Find a random entry. Suprtool's Input command always selects the first
record, so we need to select two records. It is the second record in the
resulting file that is the password.
:setvar size finfo('passwds','eof') - 1 :setvar finger ((!hpconnsecs + !hpsusan) mod size) + 1 :echo input passwds(#!finger) >usefile use usefile numrecs 2 :purge passwd output passwd xeq :print passwd;start=2