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jredwolf's avatar
jredwolf
New Contributor
3 years ago

special characters in password

here's the pw instructions:

Your case-sensitive password must be between 8 and 24 characters long.

Include at least one letter.

Include at least one number.

Passwords may not contain any form of the word "password", your email or your User ID.

You may only include these special characters: !@#$%^*()

New password cannot be equal to current password.

I have been trying to input a new password that meets ALL of these criteria including two special characters from the list.  BUT the program won't accept it.  The list does not say you MUST have special characters, so I tried simply eliminating the characters.  what's up with this? 

What does it mean to say "any form" for your pw, email, or user ID?  Suppose my old password was "dump" and my new proposed password included those same letters in any order or combination ("mudp").  would that be illegal?  Or suppose i proposed "damp" instead?  or "dum%"? 

I can't figure out how to satisfy the program and compose something I can actually remember.

1 Reply

  • Bruce's avatar
    Bruce
    Honored Contributor III

    It's bad wording.  If you use special characters...you don't have to...pick 'em from the list of specific special characters.  Special characters just make a password stronger.  If you tried using 2 special characters, were they the same special character or the same special character repeated?

    "Any form" wouldn't include all permutations of a previous password, user ID or account.  It just can't be the same or obviously close to any credential, such as being backwards or different case.  If you previously used "dump," you probably couldn't use "damp."  I'm sure "mudp" would be okay.