Security Data's Password from Star Trek: The Next Generation

[Joe]

Season 4, Episode 3: Brothers

Password was entered by voice command, so I don't see how there could be a differentiation between capitalized and non-capitalized words. I would guess that the numbers were interpreted as numerals rather than words.

Data: (using Picard's voice) One, seven, three, four, six, seven, three, two, one, four, seven, six, Charlie, three, two, seven, eight, nine, seven, seven, seven, six, four, three, Tango, seven, three, two, Victor, seven, three, one, one, seven, eight, eight, eight, seven, three, two, four, seven, six, seven, eight, nine, seven, six, four, three, seven, six. Lock.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation#Brothers_.5B4.3.5D
[This came up during an e-mail conversation with my old college professor, who feared his e-mail account had been "hacked." I advised him to change his password. This led to a discussion of what would constitute a good password. As I had just been watching Star Trek:TNG on DVD, I mentioned this scene to my old professor. I actually thought it was pretty funny.]

 

[Andy_T]

During a recent password audit, it was found that a user was using the following password: "MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofySacramento"

When asked why such a long password, he said he was told that it had to be at least 8 characters long and include at least one capital.

 

[Second Summer]

I think first and foremost, a good password is one that is long. I'm not sure the requirements for it to contain at least one character from the different groups (lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, punctuation, ...) really do much for security. So it would seem to me that Data's password is a pretty good one.

 

[beancounter]

Now, passwords often require an odd character like: @, $, %, &, etc.

I think that's a PITA.