You recently registered for an account on a secure website, and now it requests your password.
How do you behave? Use your birthday or the name of your labradoodle? Enter your preferred password, which you always use. stab at the keyboard haphazardly and hope you can remember your password, which is m4i/enH?
These are all poor concepts. A password manager that will save your passwords and increase their security is what you need. To begin with, you’ll create a lengthy, robust, and random password for each new account.
You’ll upgrade your current accounts with stronger passwords as soon as you have the time.
But don’t waste your time fumbling around the keyboard trying to think of those passwords; your password manager can assist.
You can avoid coming up with those random passwords yourself by using the password generator feature that is present in almost every password manager.
However, if you prefer a DIY approach, we’ll demonstrate how to use the best key generator: the Password Generator API.
But not every password generator is made equal. Knowing how they operate can help you select the right one for you and make wise use of the one you already have.
Are Password Generator API Really Random?
A pair of dice throw produces a completely random outcome. Nobody can foretell whether you’ll get a lucky seven, a lucky eight, or snake eyes.
However, there aren’t any tangible randomizers like dice in the world of computers.
Yes, there are a few sources of random numbers based on radioactive decay(Opens in a new window), but they are not typically found in consumer-side password managers.
Pseudorandom algorithms are used by password managers and other software packages.
This algorithm begins with a value known as a seed.
The algorithm uses the seed to generate a new number that cannot be traced back to the original; this new number then serves as the seed for the following procedure.
The original seed doesn’t come up again until all the other numbers have been drawn. The process would cycle through 4,294,967,295 different values if the seed was a 32-bit integer before repeating.
For general use and the majority of people’s password creation requirements, this is acceptable. A knowledgeable hacker might theoretically figure out the pseudo-random technique utilized, though. The hacker might theoretically duplicate the random number sequence given that data and the seed.
Except in a targeted nation-state attack or corporate espionage, that kind of directed hacking is quite unusual. Your security system probably won’t be able to shield you from such an attack. Fortunately, you’re not the intended victim of this type of cyberespionage.
Generate Long Passwords With Password Generator API
As we’ve seen, password generators don’t necessarily choose from the pool of all possible passwords matching the length and character sets you selected.
In the extreme example of a four-character password using all character sets, about 97 percent of possible four-character passwords never appear.
The solution is simple; go long! You don’t have to remember these passwords, so they can be huge. At least, as huge as the website in question accepts; some do impose limits.
Also published on Medium.