this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
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What is it with websites restricting passwords to 8 - 16 characters? Is there some technical limitation to their system?? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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It's infuriating to create a "strong password" with letters, numbers, upper and lowercase, symbols, and non-repeating text... but it has to be only 8 to 16 characters long.

That's not a "strong" password, random characters or not.

Is there a limitation that somehow prevents these sites from allowing more than 16 characters?

I'm talking government websites, not just forums. It seems crazy to me.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)

ive mostly noticed this on old systems.. where the field length for password was decided by an intern 30 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

This is it right here. The new system has to talk to the old database which has a character limit for that field. Untold amounts of money and effort would be required to update the back end.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Too real, I know of a company that is changing a number from 8 to 9 digits and it's estimated to cost around 230m to complete. Insanity.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Passwords should be hashed to a fixed length. Character limit implies clear text passwords are stored.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What if the pass is only temporarily stored in a db table, then instantly hashed and dropped? Obviously, I'm no db admin. :(

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Best practice is never to store a password in the clear.