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Level 1

23 points

Illogical Apple ID Password Rules

Hello,

I am pulling my hair out about Apple's illogical way of thinking.

I tried for minutes to create a password for a new Apple ID, of course the session had timed out a couple of times 😠 until I realized that a "capital letter" does not qualify as a "letter".

I may add that I have a Ph.D in physics and that I thought that I knew what logical thinking was.

So,

"A1234567"

"AB123456"

are not accepted.

It has to be

"aB123456"

I would have expected that the following logics apply:

1. Assumption:

The main set is "letters" which contains two sub-sets, "upper case letters" and "lower case letters".

2. Conclusion:

Because "upper case letters" are members of the set "letters", "upper case letters" are "letters".

Obviously, the Apple "kids" are not making the same assumption.

Am I missing the point ?

Regards,

Twistan

Mac mini (Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Mar 7, 2012 1:42 AM

Best reply

Twistan Author

Level 1

23 points

Posted on Mar 8, 2012 2:26 PM

Hi (moin, moin),

good on you, mum's the word !

I have a primary Apple ID which I created only a few weeks ago and that has a password with only cyphers.

Regards,

Twistan

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82 replies

Twistan Author

Level 1

23 points

Mar 10, 2012 10:10 PM in response to stevejobsfan0123

Hi,

the problem is that nobody can memorise 100 different passwords.

So, what do we do ?

One approach is to devise just a few passwords for all purposes. Even if these passwords are pretty strong they might not be accepted by some sites, and then you have to think of a yet another password and add it to your stock of passwords.

I personally wrote my own (very professional) Filemaker database (yes, I know you can use Apple's KeyChain but it is not really comfortable to use) just in case of a "memory leak".

Regards,

Twistan

John Galt

Level 10

141,408 points

Mar 11, 2012 8:21 AM in response to Twistan

the problem is that nobody can memorise 100 different passwords.

So, what do we do ?

Post-it® Notes stuck to the monitor.

I'm only being half facetious. When password requirements become so arcane this (or something like it) becomes common.

As dumb as they are, Apple's new password rules hardly the worst I have encountered. One such site requires twelve characters that must include both upper and lower case alpha, at least two non-consecutive numbers, at least two non-alphanumeric characters, and none of them consecutive or repeated. It cannot repeat any of the characters in the same position as the previous password, and must be changed every 30 days. Oh it cannot be one of the past 24 passwords used either.

Good luck.

Having to write it down obviously reduces a password's security, but it also absolves the agency of any blame for allowing trivial passwords. Write it down and it's your fault. The irony is surely lost on the idiots who require such things.

Mar 11, 2012 12:30 PM in response to Twistan

Interesting.

7:30 PM Sunday; March 11, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Twistan Author

Level 1

23 points

Mar 11, 2012 8:32 PM in response to John Galt

Hi John,

that was a good one, I had a good laugh.

I look forward to you being 100% facetious.

Best regards,

Twistan

Mar 16, 2012 5:24 PM in response to Twistan

Twistan wrote:

Hello,

I am pulling my hair out about Apple's illogical way of thinking...

Hello,

The problem lay with the very first "Password must:" rule. It is ambiguous. Apple have specified "letter" thinking this always means "lower case letter", but it obviously does not.

They should have been specifying "lower case letters" and "upper case letters", so why did they choose to use "capitol letter" instead?

I wonder if Apple were afraid of using the terms "lower case" and "upper case" because they believe their customers would not understand the terms? Or, perhaps it was a decision by a committee:-}

But the standard of parts of their web interface is close to bizarre, bordering on comic, so maybe their web team are simply not up to the job?

Weary Cheers...

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Mar 16, 2012 6:18 PM in response to Mars Express

The instructions are crystal clear and work for the more than one million users who have posted here.

Mar 18, 2012 1:57 PM in response to Klaus1

Klaus1 wrote:

The instructions are crystal clear and work for the more than one million users who have posted here.

In which case, maybe you can tell everyone what, exactly, does "letter" mean? Perhaps you could supply the qualifying ASCII codes?

Mar 18, 2012 2:28 PM in response to Mars Express

HI,

I am sure my mother taught me about letters and later Capital Letters and that later still I learned they were also referred to as Lower and Upper case.

That would suggest that Apple's Instructions are set at about School Start as a reading age.

As Klaus1 has said for most people they work.

That said, it would appear that Apple made the "right" decision about the information.

9:28 PM Sunday; March 18, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Mar 18, 2012 2:43 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Apple Doc on the subject (With Characters shown in a table)

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1728

9:43 PM Sunday; March 18, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Mar 18, 2012 4:56 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

Ralph Johns (UK) wrote:

Apple Doc on the subject (With Characters shown in a table)

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1728

You will notice that the Apple Doc never defines what is a "letter"! It refers to a "letter" in the "password requirements", but in the document it omits to define it - the "Name" field not containing "letter" but "lower case" (see my first post, QED)!

As for the "millions use it"; yes, of course they do, eventually, by trial-and-error!