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by _b8r0 5576 days ago
As I understand it, SHA1_pass does the following (please correct me if I'm wrong or missing anything out):

* Takes a user supplied passphrase

* Makes a SHA-1 hash of the supplied passphrase

* Encodes the resulting hash in a variety of ways

I don't see where a different passphrase for every site comes in. You seem to be saying that you would append the site if you were to use it - you wouldn't need a tool like SHA1_pass to do that though.

I guess where I'm coming from is that I don't see what SHA1_pass does that provides any benefit over something like 1password or password gorilla, both of which can generate random passwords for arbitrary accounts.

Following your example, if I obtain your password on site A, then I get a hex|base32|base64 representation of a SHA-1 hash. I then put this into something like this (http://www.golubev.com/hashgpu.htm) and crack the SHA-1. I notice your algorithm for creating passwords and do the same. I'm now exactly where I would be if you weren't using your approach for a password on every site.

I appreciate that the SHA-1 element acts as an interesting intermediary, but your method for generating the password is predictable. I think a randomised SHA-1 might be better.

1 comments

Author again. It should be used exactly as SwellJoe Described. The hash of "My Awesome password for Facebook!!!" should only be used on facebook.com. "My Awesome password for Twitter!!!" and so on.

The benefit of SHA1_Pass is that you never store, synchronize or backup passwords ever again. It's free, completely open-source and anyone can implement it and other software can be used to generate the hashes. Some of the password storage managers are not that way.