begin  quoting Tracy R Reed as of Fri, Jan 28, 2005 at 10:39:08PM -0800:
[snip]
> I consider the chances of anyone actually brute forcing a password by
> entering at the login prompt extremely remote. I can't think of a single
> case I have ever seen where that actually happened if the password was not
> set to some incredibly stupid default or "password". Especially given that

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  .
  .
Jan 28 13:54:13 straumli sshd[9412]: [ID 800047 auth.info] Failed
password for root from 212.71.168.123 port 34079 ssh2
Jan 28 13:54:16 straumli sshd[9414]: [ID 800047 auth.info] Illegal user
test from 212.71.168.123
Jan 28 13:54:16 straumli sshd[9414]: [ID 800047 auth.info] Failed
password for illegal user test from 212.71.168.123 port 34234 ssh2
Jan 28 13:54:19 straumli sshd[9416]: [ID 800047 auth.info] Illegal user
test from 212.71.168.123
Jan 28 13:54:19 straumli sshd[9416]: [ID 800047 auth.info] Failed
password for illegal user test from 212.71.168.123 port 34289 ssh2
Jan 28 13:54:26 straumli sshd[9418]: [ID 800047 auth.info] Illegal user
test from 212.71.168.123
Jan 28 13:54:26 straumli sshd[9418]: [ID 800047 auth.info] Failed
password for illegal user test from 212.71.168.123 port 34430 ssh2
  .
  .
  .

Yeah, I suspect they're looking for misconfigured machines.

> password delays a few seconds after each attempt a dictionary or brute
> force attack will surely take ages.

Hm.... I think I'm getting concurrent attempts.  Do I disallow
concurrent login attempts? (Dangerous -- DoS time!)  Concurrent attempts
from the same IP (hey, I do that sometimes)?

>                                     So I am not sure it is really worth
> the hassle of occasionally not being able to log into your own box. The
> only real attack I can see this stopping is that of someone brute-forcing
> the password hash from a stolen /etc/passwd file. Although it would give
> me a real good reason to carry around my USB keychain drive with my keys
> on it.

I'm thinking one-time passwords and/or medium-sized one-time keys.

Hmm.... perhaps it's time to dump my little router box and get something
that would support one-time key port-knocking.  (Encrypt the date with
the one-time key, convert the resulting number into a sequence of digits
corresponding to a set of ports, and then use port-knocking to allow for
password connections. . . and carry data and programs on a USB thumbdrive.)

-Stewart "Complicated Solutions Can Be Fun!" Stremler
-- 

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