Passphrase and password - is there a difference?

[ljcox]

My wife recently purchased a Tablet & a Wireless Router.

We connected the Router DSL port to the telephone line & the Ethernet port to the PC via an Ethernet cable.

Then we used the setup Wizard in order to establish the PC to DSL and the Wireless to Tablet connections.

During the setup procedure, we were asked to enter a passphrase. The Wizard suggested a long & complicated automatically generated one.

So we used it on the assumption that it would make the wireless connection secure.

Later in the procedure, we were asked to enter a password. So we entered an 8 character alpha numeric password. However, in order to access the Internet from the Tablet, it is necessary to use the passphrase rather than the password as the Tablet will not accept the password.

Everything we have read is confusing. Some seem to imply that the password and passphrase are the same. But others seem to imply that they are different. See the attachment for example.

It is tedious to have to enter the long & complicated passphrase from the Tablet.

Any assistance will be appreciated.

 

[ads-ee]

In the case of the access passphrase/password reference in the picture they are one in the same for accessing the network.

The password that was requested later may be for accessing the wireless router to change the wifi settings.

On another topic you should make sure you set the Wifi security to WPA/WPA2 and not WEP. There are programs out there that a laptop could run that will break the WEP security rather quickly. WEP is pretty much like having no security enabled.


On the subject of passwords an 8 character one isn't all that strong. I typically have passwords over 15 characters/numbers/special_characters long.

e.g. the following password X7hb9i2F is actually significantly less secure than I-dont-like-2-drink-coffee-after-5PM even though the later is much easier to remember. The key to password generation is length which increases the search space. Very long passwords with Upper/lower/numbers/and_special_characters makes the search space quite large. Unfortunately in some instances your stuck with a maximum password length of 8 with all the dumb complexity rules required by whatever is requesting a password (If it was my bank, I would switch banks ;-))

 

[ljcox]

Thanks for the help. Very much appreciated.

Len