password expiration policy (was Re: UNIX V7)

[Sridhar Ayengar]

Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
> When I worked at IBM a couple of years ago (doing rather dull tech
> support stuff) I worked out that the password rules (something like
> "eight to ten characters, two to four upper-case letters and two to four
> digits not in the first, second, second-to-last or last position")
> yielded about 1000 valid passwords...

IBM *never* had password rules like that.

It's "eight or more, at least one alphabetic, at least one 
non-alphabetic".  It used to be "eight or more, at least one 
non-alphabetic, can't begin or end with a non-alphabetic".

Of course, GSD331 had its own weird requirements, but those are, by no 
means, IBM's official rules for internal passwords.

Peace...  Sridhar