xkcdpass

The 936th issue of the famous XKCD comic has brought to light an interesting concept when it comes to password policies.

This issue didn't only break down why the current method of choosing passwords is producing hard to remember passwords, but why all these strings are also very easy to crack by most hackers.

The new algorithm proposed by XKCD relies on choosing four (or more) random words, which in most cases are very common and easy to remember.

While most people will think these passwords are very easy to crack, the comic showed why this is exactly the opposite, the length of the password contributing to its complexity more than the classic method of using non-standard characters.

The xkcdpass Python library is a utility for the Python console that allows developers to generate random passwords using this policy, using words from a predefined pool of terms.

Developers can control the number of words in the password, along with the type of allowed characters, and a few other more settings.

The recommended install method should be via the classic pip utility: pip install xkcdpass

Requirements:

• Python 2.4 or higher