I know this isn't the forum here for password discussion, but it'll probably be most appropriate here. Look close at my screenie. For all the times I've used this to generate 32-character passwords, I've never seen any recognizable word whatsoever.
JFYI "Avast" is a nautical term. It means "Stop!". http://www.thefreedictionary.com/avast I would really love to see Avast! antivirus using more nautical terms though. Like "Davy Jones' Locker" for the virus chest or "Call the bridge!" for a warning if one or more protection feature is disabled. Or something like "Ahoy! Your subscription will expire in 30 days, sailor!". That'd be sweet. XD
You forgot: SOS I would like to announce my work on a forthcoming Avast! clone currently in an unsaved C++ window... Abig!
What would SOS be used for? Calling for technical support? =V Anyway, it's disappointing to see a password generator includes a word that exists in the dictionary. "Thuc" and "Awatek" also seem to be proper words, although in non English language.
I suspect that those words were formed by random letters, and I also doubt that their password generator has dictionaries to check for common words in the generated strings.
Too good to be a coincidence. I can make a better password than what's being recommended. A password generator should do better than this.
Considering I'm generating 32-charater strings, I thuc that's not much of an issue. I don't actually use them as Norton generates them. To build one password, I'll generate several and pick from within each of those the more convoluted strings to build the one I want. Often that also requires some editing, like changing 77 to another value or where I see more than two instances of the same cased letter. Over time I have found this Web site to generate passwords that are accepted without issue by a majority of the secure commerce, financial, etc. sites I use as they don't accept the likes of ~ or } and such. My password app manages 34 accounts and my password change cycle is four, six or twelve months depending on the account, so I know of what I speak. On the other hand, for my critical self-extracting personal archives I go hog wild. ¿+v£z÷iò´mÅFfHì?ͪ¾ÛKï?¤"øKó4wSö Woo hoo!
Tangent question on passwords? Are real words, to add length to passwords, less secure than just as long completely random characters? Geekspeak, the radio show, has always advocated adding words to random characters to increase length, as being better security than shorter all random passwords, and I have found it makes it easier if you manually enter them (easy to make typos on 30+ character passwords especially the way most sites do not show what you type.) For example, I usually make a password with 10-15+ random characters then add real words and spaces, colons etc throughout the random characters to add overall length. Something like: M&34 red 892G#ht mAn;dog 6^%!fH 891mOnDay When I check them on password rating sites, I get high ratings on them being secure. The one above would take Time To Crack: 8.471623617752778e+28 centuries Total Passwords in Pattern: 5,000,000,000,000,000 Decillion per https://passfault.appspot.com/password_strength.html