Re: [K12OSN] Random Word Generator

[Scott Sherrill <scott hancock k12 mi us>]

> Anyone know of a good (open source of course, or at least free...) 
> random word generator?
>
> Our middle school students have forgotten their passwords so often, 
> that the principal wants me to assign a password to each student, 
> and then disable their ability to change 'em.  Of course the catch 
> is that they need to be memorable, ie "dog, fish, wall, grass, tree, 
> bike, clock"  -- not the most secure, but what we need...
>
> Is there such a program?  Should I just start looking in the dictionary?

Shawn,

What I would do is build your word list from one of the dictionaries 
at ftp://ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/wordlists or 
ftp://ftp.cerias.purdue.edu/pub/dict

prune the list down to the X words you want to keep...most word lists 
on those sites are going to include words I don't think you want.

Then a quick script to pull a random word from the dictionary (this 
is untested code written as I go :-)

<code>

#!/usr/bin/perl

$userid="theuser";
open (DICTIONARY, "dictionary.txt") || die "Couldn't open dictionary file\n";
@wordsindictionary = <DICTIONARY>;
srand(time() ^ ($$ + ($$ << 15)) );
$rand= int rand($#wordsindictionary);
system "echo $wordsindictionary[$rand] | /usr/bin/password --stdin $userid"
print "The new password for $userid is $wordsindictionary[$rand]\n";

</code>


Again this is all off the cuff and guaranteed to break but its a start.


Scott
--
--
Scott Sherrill
Technology Coordinator Hancock Public Schools
Hancock, MI
http://www.hancock.k12.mi.us