Re: What are the odds of guessing a number between 1 and 20 digits long?

On 31 May 2006 03:25:12 -0700, dancecommander81@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

A previous employee had set a password on our colour copier software, I
was told there was no over ride and we would have to reinstall the
software on the printer and would be charged £300 for an engineer to
do so. I said I'd rather have a go at guessing, and was told I could be
there for days as the password uses digits 0-9 and can be up to 20
digits in length. So I set off trying different numbers, some using
patterns (eg. the corners of the number pad etc), others just random,
after about 10 minutes and probably around 100 attempts, trying mainly
4 or 6 digit passwords, I guessed the correct password, 999. What are
the chances?

This is not a strictly mathematical question.

If we assume that the password was a random number with
between 1 and 20 digits then your chance of guessing
right in 100 tries is incredibly small. But the password
was _not_ chosen at random, it was (evidently) chosen
so as to be easy to remember.

************************

David C. Ullrich
.

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