Talk:2700: Account Problems - Revision history

172.70.91.58 at 14:53, 25 November 2022

2022-11-25T14:53:44Z

John at 12:40, 25 November 2022

2022-11-25T12:40:35Z

Hddqsb: forgot to sign

2022-11-22T10:08:13Z

forgot to sign

Hddqsb: reply to @172.70.91.54 re superfluous first para and Pascal strings

2022-11-22T10:06:44Z

reply to @172.70.91.54 re superfluous first para and Pascal strings

172.70.90.173 at 16:49, 21 November 2022

2022-11-21T16:49:46Z

172.70.91.54 at 16:46, 21 November 2022

2022-11-21T16:46:27Z

172.70.134.122 at 16:16, 21 November 2022

2022-11-21T16:16:50Z

Kimmerin at 15:50, 21 November 2022

2022-11-21T15:50:10Z

Hddqsb: notify User:Kimmerin that I added his point about title text and null character to the explanation

2022-11-21T15:38:28Z

notify User:Kimmerin that I added his point about title text and null character to the explanation

Hddqsb: delete my obsolete comments

2022-11-21T14:52:57Z

delete my obsolete comments

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:53, 25 November 2022
Line 57:		Line 57:
	NULL was also a headache for me in the early 2000’s, working with Oracle web forms, and some weird interaction of software bugs between a particular version of Safari web browser, Apache web server, and Oracle somehow allowed the string “NULL” to get into the Oracle database, breaking the SQL Boolean function IS NULL. The kludge was to change the IF [string] IS NULL” test to be IF [string] IS NULL OR [string] = “NULL”		NULL was also a headache for me in the early 2000’s, working with Oracle web forms, and some weird interaction of software bugs between a particular version of Safari web browser, Apache web server, and Oracle somehow allowed the string “NULL” to get into the Oracle database, breaking the SQL Boolean function IS NULL. The kludge was to change the IF [string] IS NULL” test to be IF [string] IS NULL OR [string] = “NULL”
	(Unfortunately not the ugliest code I have ever written) [[User:John\|John]] ([[User talk:John\|talk]]) 12:40, 25 November 2022 (UTC)		(Unfortunately not the ugliest code I have ever written) [[User:John\|John]] ([[User talk:John\|talk]]) 12:40, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
		+	:Not with null-character, that I'm aware, but when our small company (with Novell-based networking, for fule-servers, printers and most asynchronous communications to the outside world via a somewhat proprietry email gateway over a dial-up) merged into a larger company (with NT servers, and the rest, and now tied directly into their worldwide-WAN by ISDN) there were various hiccoughs in making sure existing and extended infrastructure didn't have conflicting ideas of what was acceptible in the now unified logins. (Not to mention that our username system had been initial-based, but we were now needing formats based upon full names. We had to keep both continuity (for our own long term usage validation) and a migration (to integrate into theirs) and otherwise competent users who were big experts in their own field of data analysis often could not handle the technicalities of multiple/nested logins or the logistical fallout from having their initial login profiles 'remembering credentials'. The fuss it took, until we phased through a full migration (helped by some staff turnover) and relegated the much more competant Novell system to backup/archive servers only.
		+	:And then there was the printer that aperiodically 'broke' because the replacement Windows printserver was somehow unable to pass some particular control characters (not sure if null was ever amongst them) that were occasionally used as the daily-changing hashed output to 'sign' the printouts and thus prove their legacy/providence.
		+	:I got a great deal of experience with system migrations, from all that, but also a strong dislike of being pushed into them or things that aren't themselves 'broke' being 'fixed' by mandatory upgrades. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.58\|172.70.91.58]] 14:53, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:40, 25 November 2022
Line 52:		Line 52:
	I've actually had this problem long ago; I used the @ sign as part of my password, and it didn't let me log in anymore. Some systems in the good old days (I think it was an FTP server) used the @ character to separate username and password when authenticating. Also, I am still running into this problem sometimes with usernames (emails) allowing "+" in the address on registration, but not when logging in. [[User:Pbb\|Pbb]] ([[User talk:Pbb\|talk]])		I've actually had this problem long ago; I used the @ sign as part of my password, and it didn't let me log in anymore. Some systems in the good old days (I think it was an FTP server) used the @ character to separate username and password when authenticating. Also, I am still running into this problem sometimes with usernames (emails) allowing "+" in the address on registration, but not when logging in. [[User:Pbb\|Pbb]] ([[User talk:Pbb\|talk]])
	:The @-sign is used to separate authentication and hostname information in an URL, e.g. http://user:passwd@server.example.com:port/... Within an FTP-session it was commonly used in FTP-proxy scenarios, i.e. you've connected to an internal FTP-proxy-server providing username and hostname as username in the form username@remoteserver.example.com (similar to the syntax used for scp/sftp) and the password as is. An @-sign in the password in the latter shouldn't have any effect and within the URL an @-character would get URL-encoded not having an effect, either. URL-encoding might be the reason for the last problem, you've described leading to a space in the stored value on the server side. [[User:Kimmerin\|Kimmerin]] ([[User talk:Kimmerin\|talk]]) 15:50, 21 November 2022 (UTC)		:The @-sign is used to separate authentication and hostname information in an URL, e.g. http://user:passwd@server.example.com:port/... Within an FTP-session it was commonly used in FTP-proxy scenarios, i.e. you've connected to an internal FTP-proxy-server providing username and hostname as username in the form username@remoteserver.example.com (similar to the syntax used for scp/sftp) and the password as is. An @-sign in the password in the latter shouldn't have any effect and within the URL an @-character would get URL-encoded not having an effect, either. URL-encoding might be the reason for the last problem, you've described leading to a space in the stored value on the server side. [[User:Kimmerin\|Kimmerin]] ([[User talk:Kimmerin\|talk]]) 15:50, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
		+
		+	A very similar situation happened when I was network manager at Moravian College back in the mid-‘90s. A user was unknowingly typing an ASCII 0 character as a “special” character for their password, and doing it as like the 4th character typed, so the rest of what they typed (which was about 8 more characters) was simply ignored, the system thought their password was just the first 3 characters, the user was none the wiser, until the day I implemented checks to require “strong” passwords that included a minimum length. The user came to me all huffy that their password was long enough, but they system was making them change it, but not accepting the change. I never ask users for their password, so diagnosing the problem took a few tries, I had to think to ask them to prepend 8 x’s to the front of their password, and when that worked then I understood the problem.
		+
		+	NULL was also a headache for me in the early 2000’s, working with Oracle web forms, and some weird interaction of software bugs between a particular version of Safari web browser, Apache web server, and Oracle somehow allowed the string “NULL” to get into the Oracle database, breaking the SQL Boolean function IS NULL. The kludge was to change the IF [string] IS NULL” test to be IF [string] IS NULL OR [string] = “NULL”
		+	(Unfortunately not the ugliest code I have ever written) [[User:John\|John]] ([[User talk:John\|talk]]) 12:40, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

@@ Line 25: / Line 25: @@
 :Hi [[User:Equites|Equites]], I [[Special:Diff/299457|rewrote]] the explanation, hope that's okay. I removed the references to the security aspect because I didn't think it was relevant. (Also pinging [[User:FrankHightower|FrankHightower]].) --[[User:Hddqsb|Hddqsb]] ([[User talk:Hddqsb|talk]]) 07:59, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 ::The first paragraph seems a bit superfluous - it's basically just a description of the comic, so isn't really adding anything to the explanation. Also, I think the bit about Pascal could come out of the second para - it doesn't appear to be relevant to what's going on in the comic, so it could just skip to the bit about null terminators.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.54|172.70.91.54]] 16:46, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
-:::I removed the most superfluous part from the first paragraph, and pared down the explanation of Pascal strings ([[Special:Diff/299641|diff]]). I didn't remove the first paragraph entirely because I think it provides important context and details which are implicit in the comic. And I think it's important to at least mention Pascal strings because that sets the scene for the explanation of C strings (which ''don't'' explicitly store the length).
+:::I removed the most superfluous part from the first paragraph, and pared down the explanation of Pascal strings ([[Special:Diff/299641|diff]]). I didn't remove the first paragraph entirely because I think it provides important context and details which are implicit in the comic. And I think it's important to at least mention Pascal strings because that sets the scene for the explanation of C strings (which ''don't'' explicitly store the length). --[[User:Hddqsb|Hddqsb]] ([[User talk:Hddqsb|talk]]) 10:08, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
 Seems to be another Tech issue comic, its a tech issue with Cueball talking to Megan and the tech issue is extremely cursed. Should we add this one?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.22.98|162.158.22.98]] 06:00, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@@ Line 25: / Line 25: @@
 :Hi [[User:Equites|Equites]], I [[Special:Diff/299457|rewrote]] the explanation, hope that's okay. I removed the references to the security aspect because I didn't think it was relevant. (Also pinging [[User:FrankHightower|FrankHightower]].) --[[User:Hddqsb|Hddqsb]] ([[User talk:Hddqsb|talk]]) 07:59, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 ::The first paragraph seems a bit superfluous - it's basically just a description of the comic, so isn't really adding anything to the explanation. Also, I think the bit about Pascal could come out of the second para - it doesn't appear to be relevant to what's going on in the comic, so it could just skip to the bit about null terminators.[[Special:Contributions/172.70.91.54|172.70.91.54]] 16:46, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 Seems to be another Tech issue comic, its a tech issue with Cueball talking to Megan and the tech issue is extremely cursed. Should we add this one?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.22.98|162.158.22.98]] 06:00, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@@ Line 37: / Line 37: @@
 :It is. And (with caveats, depending upon other issues and circumstances) Alt-numpad0 would give me the null-char wherever it's practical and not blocked (intentionally or just because it isn't specifically catered for).[[Special:Contributions/172.71.178.206|172.71.178.206]] 15:25, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 ::I know a sysadmin friend of mine had to help a user whose account name was "🦙" (The Llama unicode symbol) and he was on a computer where not all layers between the username field and the password authentication understood unicode. Examples like this will happen in real life. [[User:IIVQ|IIVQ]] ([[User talk:IIVQ|talk]]) 11:16, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 As Cueball is showing and handing over his laptop, I don't think the issue is about a website account (where he could probably do a password reset), but his local account on the laptop, of which he is now locked out, and hopes Poneytail can break into it? [[User:Ghen|ghen]] ([[User talk:Ghen|talk]]) 18:28, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

@@ Line 42: / Line 42: @@
 ''"Suppose a website's registration form allows the user's new password to have up to 20 characters, but due to a programmer error the login page only accepts passwords with up to 18 characters."''<br>
 There are also cases where page or application is updated with the expectation that old user accounts will still be working, but updated page no longer accepts same characters (or number of characters) than the old one, locking some people out. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 01:35, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 Concerning the password described in the title text. If the characters are used in the order they appear in the Unicode Table the password starts with the Null String Terminator and therefor you will essentially end up with an empty password if C or a programming language is used handling strings the same way. [[User:Kimmerin|Kimmerin]] ([[User talk:Kimmerin|talk]]) 12:51, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:50, 21 November 2022
Line 47:		Line 47:

	I've actually had this problem long ago; I used the @ sign as part of my password, and it didn't let me log in anymore. Some systems in the good old days (I think it was an FTP server) used the @ character to separate username and password when authenticating. Also, I am still running into this problem sometimes with usernames (emails) allowing "+" in the address on registration, but not when logging in. [[User:Pbb\|Pbb]] ([[User talk:Pbb\|talk]])		I've actually had this problem long ago; I used the @ sign as part of my password, and it didn't let me log in anymore. Some systems in the good old days (I think it was an FTP server) used the @ character to separate username and password when authenticating. Also, I am still running into this problem sometimes with usernames (emails) allowing "+" in the address on registration, but not when logging in. [[User:Pbb\|Pbb]] ([[User talk:Pbb\|talk]])
		+	:The @-sign is used to separate authentication and hostname information in an URL, e.g. http://user:passwd@server.example.com:port/... Within an FTP-session it was commonly used in FTP-proxy scenarios, i.e. you've connected to an internal FTP-proxy-server providing username and hostname as username in the form username@remoteserver.example.com (similar to the syntax used for scp/sftp) and the password as is. An @-sign in the password in the latter shouldn't have any effect and within the URL an @-character would get URL-encoded not having an effect, either. URL-encoding might be the reason for the last problem, you've described leading to a space in the stored value on the server side. [[User:Kimmerin\|Kimmerin]] ([[User talk:Kimmerin\|talk]]) 15:50, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:38, 21 November 2022
Line 44:		Line 44:

	Concerning the password described in the title text. If the characters are used in the order they appear in the Unicode Table the password starts with the Null String Terminator and therefor you will essentially end up with an empty password if C or a programming language is used handling strings the same way. [[User:Kimmerin\|Kimmerin]] ([[User talk:Kimmerin\|talk]]) 12:51, 21 November 2022 (UTC)		Concerning the password described in the title text. If the characters are used in the order they appear in the Unicode Table the password starts with the Null String Terminator and therefor you will essentially end up with an empty password if C or a programming language is used handling strings the same way. [[User:Kimmerin\|Kimmerin]] ([[User talk:Kimmerin\|talk]]) 12:51, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
		+	: Good point, added ([[Special:Permalink/299540\|snapshot]]). --[[User:Hddqsb\|Hddqsb]] ([[User talk:Hddqsb\|talk]]) 15:38, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

	I've actually had this problem long ago; I used the @ sign as part of my password, and it didn't let me log in anymore. Some systems in the good old days (I think it was an FTP server) used the @ character to separate username and password when authenticating. Also, I am still running into this problem sometimes with usernames (emails) allowing "+" in the address on registration, but not when logging in. [[User:Pbb\|Pbb]] ([[User talk:Pbb\|talk]])		I've actually had this problem long ago; I used the @ sign as part of my password, and it didn't let me log in anymore. Some systems in the good old days (I think it was an FTP server) used the @ character to separate username and password when authenticating. Also, I am still running into this problem sometimes with usernames (emails) allowing "+" in the address on registration, but not when logging in. [[User:Pbb\|Pbb]] ([[User talk:Pbb\|talk]])