this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
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Today I Learned

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[–] ewigkaiwelo@lemmy.world 5 points 23 hours ago

pass --generate -c

[–] jlow@discuss.tchncs.de 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Or just use your password manager. Where you save that password.

[–] Makhno@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

gasp what??

Your password manager does this too!

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 51 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

That's fucked up, they should not do that. Even if they do it in a way that users are actually secure (maybe generating the password in the browser, nothing serverside?), it isn't good to train people to trust a website for this.

[–] JennyLaFae@lemmy.blahaj.zone 33 points 1 day ago

I've started using https://neal.fun/password-game/ to generate passwords 😊

[–] kSPvhmTOlwvMd7Y7E@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

$ Openssl rand 16 | base64

today I learned. Thanks :)

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 day ago

No thank you, KeepAssXC for me!

[–] hakunawazo@lemmy.world 38 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] zephiriz@lemmy.ml 28 points 1 day ago

All I see is *******.

correct horse battery staple

[–] TehBamski@lemmy.world 171 points 2 days ago (6 children)

This seems like one picked up data packet away from being a bad idea. Am I overthinking this?

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago

This is probably ok. First of all, they're probably actually doing it in Javascript in the browser. It probably never travels over the network at all. And, if it did, with HTTPS it would be hard to intercept and decrypt except by a government or something.

But, it still gives me the willies to generate a password on a web page. Fundamentally a web browser is still a tool for sending and receiving data over the Internet, and that's not the kind of tool I'd want to be generating something that I don't want other people to know or see.

What happens if there's a bug? If the password is being generated in an app on my local system a badly designed app with a bug could maybe log my newly generated password in a local log file somewhere. If there's a bug in DuckDuckGo's javascript, who knows where that newly generated password might be logged?

[–] zergtoshi@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago

With https as protocol, picked up data packets won't do much harm.
But relying on anything but a local password manager is imho still a bad idea.

[–] Godort@lemmy.ca 84 points 2 days ago (5 children)

This is probably fine. The connection to DDG will be over HTTPS, so a captured packet would need to be decoded first. And if someone were to manage to break the encryption, then they would also need to know what service you used the password for.

Ultimately, it's more secure to generate locally, but it would be a huge amount of work to get anything usable out of a packet capture

[–] warm@kbin.earth 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Are they sending data? I'm pretty sure this will just be generated on the client.

[–] plz1@lemmy.world 52 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, I tested it. It's not a client side thing, it is part of the search page output.

[–] warm@kbin.earth 4 points 1 day ago
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[–] who@feddit.org 32 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You are not overthinking it. Exploiting this would be a bit more complex than capturing a packet on the wire, but it is possible.

If you intend to use a passphrase for anything important, it's best to generate it locally.

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[–] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 2 days ago

Yeah I think I'll just click an icon in my password manager instead.

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[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I would definitely use those passwords! /s

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[–] tuckerm@feddit.online 43 points 2 days ago (7 children)

I like the little tools like this that DuckDuckGo has. A couple others:

  • "color picker"
  • "base64 encode your_text_here" (and "base64 decode encoded_string_here" as well)
  • "json formatter"
[–] wetnoodle@lemmy.blahaj.zone 29 points 2 days ago (4 children)

my favorite is "qr code" best and easiest qr code generator

[–] denhafiz_@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

I like this as most qr generator websites make a link shortener kind of thing and put ads before my content.

[–] tuckerm@feddit.online 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)
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[–] 13igTyme@piefed.social 53 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

If you're going to auto generate passwords, just use BitWarden.

[–] Telodzrum@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (6 children)

If you're going to use a password vault, use one you host yourself and not someone else's service.

[–] scintilla@crust.piefed.social 59 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The difference in complexity in setting up bitwarden and using your own self-hosted instance of bitwarden is fucking massive. For 99.9% of people rhem using bitwarden would greatly improve their password security and bitwarden has proven to be better than the competition.

[–] cmrss2@aussie.zone 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

FYI Vaultwarden is simpler and should be easier to self-host

[–] guy@piefed.social 33 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Would love to set up Vaultwarden, but I trust my own skills in hardening a server less than Bitwardens

[–] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago

I don't even trust my server skills enough to open my jellyfin to the internet.

[–] notarobot@lemmy.zip 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Lol, no. I don't trust myselft to keep it well maintained, up to date, nor available when it matters most.

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[–] markz@suppo.fi 10 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Most people can not host it. Of those who can, many shouldn't host it, for their own safety.

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[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 day ago

That isn't great from a security perspective

[–] sysop@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

$ pwgen -s -1 32

[–] state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You can also just use "random password x" with x being a number. What I use more often is "random uuid" which I hope is self explanatory.

[–] percent@infosec.pub 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Fun fact: You can generate a random UUID in your web browser without needing to visit a website. Just open your browser console and type crypto.randomUUID()

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Stop putting crypto into everything!

(/jk)

[–] ech@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 days ago

Or just use a locally hosted password generator for one that isn't handfed to you by a for-profit company...

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (7 children)

Ok but you should use passphrases. Better to type and remember in case you need to

There are instances where sites prevent copy-paste, or you are on another machine without your password manager available

[–] SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 15 points 2 days ago (7 children)

If you have a password vault, use the vault first.

For rotating PC login credentials, I use codified passphrases. They typically meet security needs, are unique and nearly unguessable because it could be ANYTHING in your office, and don't contain dictionary words. Example:

Annual evaluations are due before summer. Be sure to mention the Grodsky project! aeadB4S.Bs2mtGp.

Where did Julie's candy go? I ate it! She'll never know >:D

WdJcg?I8i!Snn>:D

Even if I had a perfectly secure connection, I'm still getting a password from a service that could be tracking me.

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Alternatively, you can just roll your face on the keyboard and then take a screenshot of the resulting password to save it. 🤷‍♂️

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