Do you really, i mean really, believe that computers are afraid of capital letters? and punctuation? Don't tell me that you want to scare off people, not computers, it would be even more ridiculous, given a second thought.

How would you feel if a service provider asks you: «please include at least three capital letters, seven underscores, and a number thirteen in your password»? — weird? You better adjust your attitude. The first ingredient is already required by some, more to follow soon.

Seriously, have you ever tried to think why all those «password choosing» policies are so ridiculous and stupid, are they as beneficial as people believe?

The serious answer to the question is given in my new paper on the password authentication: arxiv.org/abs/1505.05090 and its summary is as follows: «The password policies are futile, because they have no formal mathematical foundation at all, and this is why they are all as ridiculous as homeopathy».

Here i want to present some fun aspects of the problem.

The two most prominent protagonists of computer security MS and Google directly contradict each other:

DO NOT USE:
Common letter-to-symbol conversions, such as changing «o» to «0».
USE:
similar looking substitutions, such as the number zero for the letter 'O'
No one notice. These both password creation policies are equally respected. Who are we to doubt the Wisdom of the Titans!?

Also, the Titans teach us that there is an inherent contradiction between security and memorability. Of course the Titans do not condescend to proving their claims. We are supposed to make a leap of faith. I don't have faith, i need a proof, or at least some evidence supporting the claim. Here is the claim:

Human memory is limited and therefore users cannot remember secure passwords.
Call me when you find any evidence of that.