2 password policies - Math Central

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Question from Larry, a parent:

2 password policies are in question.
Policy 1 states that a password must be between 6 and 8 characters
Policy 2 states that that a password must be exactly 8 characters.
Both policies state that Passwords can contain A-Z a-z 0-9 (26*2)+ 10 characters to choose from.
Which policy is stronger?
How many potential passwords exist for policy 1 and how many for policy 2?

30⁸ answers for policy 1, but I can't remember how to do the rest.

THANKS!!

Larry,

for Policy 1 you could have 62⁶ + 62⁷ + 62⁸ passwords as you have 2(26)+10 = 62 choices for each character and you could have 6 or 7 or 8 characters. Policy 2 allows only 62⁸ passwords.

Penny

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