Password Requirments does not allow the use of any Special Characters?

[xyzforgottenme]

I understand having password requirements by why would they prevent the use of any special characters? Is there a post or article that firmly explains the reasoning and logic behind this decision.

Also side note how do you feel about the issue.

[xyzforgottenme · Accepted solution]

OK, figured out by doing 1Abcdef+Character. One at a time.

~ - no

` - yes

Shift + 1-0 - yes

_ - yes

- - yes

+ - yes

= - yes

{} - yes

[] - yes

| - no

\ - no

: - yes

; - yes

" - no

' - yes

<> - yes

, - no

. - no

? - no

/ - no

PS. This should really be listed when you go to change your password. Who knew . would not be accepted?

For the math junkies

In doing the math with a minimum password of 8. Limited by 1 uppercase 1 number 1 special character. With all characters allowed. The number of possible outcomes totals to about. 61,060,814,663,680 However, when removing 8 characters from the equation it goes down to 29,354,645,898,240 (48% of what it could be)

1       26 (required uppercase)

2       10 (required number)

3       24 (required special character with the removal/ prevention of 8)

4       86 (52 Letters + 10 Numbers + 24 (32 - 8) Special Characters)

5       86

6       86

7       86

8       86

[Straatford87]

@xyzforgottenme,

We do allow special characters in our passwords, I have one myself.

However, like you mentioned, not all of them are accepted. At the moment I have no detailed information available about the reasoning of certain characters not being accepted. However, you are free to try other character combinations in your password until you find something that you are comfortable with.

[xyzforgottenme]

Hmmm, so special characters are allowed? I will have to experiment then and see which one is not friendly to the system.

[xyzforgottenme · Accepted solution]

OK, figured out by doing 1Abcdef+Character. One at a time.

~ - no

` - yes

Shift + 1-0 - yes

_ - yes

- - yes

+ - yes

= - yes

{} - yes

[] - yes

| - no

\ - no

: - yes

; - yes

" - no

' - yes

<> - yes

, - no

. - no

? - no

/ - no

PS. This should really be listed when you go to change your password. Who knew . would not be accepted?

For the math junkies

In doing the math with a minimum password of 8. Limited by 1 uppercase 1 number 1 special character. With all characters allowed. The number of possible outcomes totals to about. 61,060,814,663,680 However, when removing 8 characters from the equation it goes down to 29,354,645,898,240 (48% of what it could be)

1       26 (required uppercase)

2       10 (required number)

3       24 (required special character with the removal/ prevention of 8)

4       86 (52 Letters + 10 Numbers + 24 (32 - 8) Special Characters)

5       86

6       86

7       86

8       86

[ravinperumal]

What a pain changing the password.!! No information whatsoever.. Absolutely no help I hope your games are not as crappy as your website. Just wasted a good half an hour of my life and I still cant find out what does or doesnt work.

[Straatford87]

Some additional information is available  in our How to maintain your account security and safety article. However, the list is not as detailed as @xyzforgottenme's list. Thanks again for putting that together.

---

---

Create a strong, unique password

Weak passwords are easy to guess. That's why we have increased our password complexity requirements. Simple passwords, such as passwords that match your email address in part, are not accepted. Use the following ideas to develop a password that is more secure:

• Use a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters.
• Use different passwords for all of your online accounts, particularly your EA Account, console login, and email. If you use the same password for all accounts and one of them is compromised, then all of your accounts are at risk.
• Do not use any information in your password that someone can easily obtain (like your Xbox LIVE gamertag/PlayStation™Network online ID, squad names, your name, date of birth, and so on).
• Delete any emails that contain password information (after writing it down in a safe place).
• Change your passwords periodically. 
  • If you need to reset your password, visit the password retrieval page or follow the password retrieval process if you play Pogo.

[AnthraxPants]

So basically no full ASCII set. Alphanumeric or hex only. Wonder how many characters is possible? Oh yeah, I forgot I can't check because I can never remember the security question to change password, only stupidly long complicated passwords.

Does anyone know just how many characters are allowed for a password. I'm hoping maybe at least 64 or 128.

Writing down passwords is also very smart. It is much harder to break into your house and work out what password goes where and where you could possibly keep them or what is a password, than to trivially break into your computer and capture any passwords in files you may have written in text, and even archival programs often have exploits which will allow them to be cracked open bypassing any master passwords. People would forget to give me Windows or Unix passwords quite often when I had to backup their data to remove virus or fix their computer, and often very easy to guess passwords or use an admin account creation or file permission exploit and completely bypass their password, often over a network as I could be working on at least 5 computers simultaneously to save time. ALWAYS set file view settings to Details if fixing computers, you really don't want to see some images people keep on their computers or know some things that can never be forgotten!