Auto-generated password - which characters do you disallow

avoiding confusion between zero and oh

[ergophobe]

When you autogenerate passwords, which characters do you keep out of your passwords? The obvious are

0 - zero
O - oh (upper case)
1 - one
l - el (lower case)

and perhaps

o - oh (lower case)

Any others that lead to confusion and users writing to say they keep entering their passwords, but they can't log in?

[coopster]

lowercase Q -- "q"

Some folks think it is a lowercase G "g"

[ergophobe]

Obviously. Should have thought of that. I haven't had any trouble yet, but q/g is an obvious confusing one if someone looks quickly. So it's

a-f, h-k, m-n, p-z, 2-9, A-N, P-Z

That looks pretty good.

[edited by: ergophobe at 1:13 am (utc) on July 16, 2005]

[coopster]

2 and capital Z can sometimes cause confusion too.

[coopster]

8 and B ...

[gertrijs]

1 - one l - el (lower case)

I and i

Gert

[ergophobe]

I know it's not as strong, but I just stick to lower case. Autogenerated password normally don't last that long and even as lower case only, they're still better than what most people pick for themselves.