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Borealid • today at 1:47 PM • 3 replies • view on HN

What people think of as a very strong password often has <100 "security bits" of entropy.

Keys are usually at least 128 bits of entropy, and it's easy to take them up to 256.

Yes, both are a shared secret, but password auth - even with challenge-response - is weaker than key auth exactly because key auth provides more guess resistance.


Replies

Elucalidavah • today at 1:59 PM

But the SSH keys are based on asymmetric crypto, not shared secrets.

traceroute66 • today at 2:18 PM

> What people think of as a very strong password often has <100 "security bits" of entropy.

The best password in the world will still be defeated by a simple keylogger or breach of your password manager.

scotty79 • today at 1:52 PM

2^100 is a lot of things to try though

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