[twblalock]

> Is it safe to rely on a 4 digit PIN? Obviously not, when there are only 10000 possible combinations. You shouldn't need Bitwarden to tell you that though.

Most people really don’t know that. It is not obvious to a normal user.

[brewdad]

I realize math education in the US sucks but are really suggesting most people can’t figure out that 0 to 9999 is all the possibilities you get from 4 digits?

[pyrelight]

You're thinking like an engineer.

I'm confident your average person would understand that a PIN is insecure if it was explained to them.

But think about other things in life that use a PIN -- debit cards, customer support shortcuts, etc. These are things that can't or typically won't be brute forced and are deemed as "secure enough" in our world.

Your average person has no idea how a 2FA token is generated, but they know it's just a few numbers that they have to enter on various websites and apps, and those numbers resemble a PIN. Yet another reinforcement that just a few numbers keeps things secure.

If you walk a user through software setup, and at some point they need to provide a complex master password, they would never automatically assume that being presented with an option to use a PIN would remove the security provided by a complex master password.

Only if they were to think it through, or have someone who thinks analytically, would they understand that in this scenario, given that it's Internet-accessible software, a PIN could be brute forced in no time unlike their debit card or any other PIN they may need to use in the course of their day to day life.

[twblalock]

Yes, most people cannot figure that out, but also it would not occur to most people to consider that when opting for a PIN over a password.

[GeorgeDewar]

One could get into a long debate about whether "most" is literally true or not, but I think most of us should be able to agree that at least a significant proportion of people - enough to matter - either won't or can't think of this without some prompting.

[_flux]

Well, a person once asked me why they need to use a bank card in the ATM, when it already asks for the PIN.

[fomine3]

Average user: Bank card requires 4 digits PIN, so it must be safe