Mac OS X 10.2.x Password Warnings

Unlike previous versions of Mac OS X, version 10.2.x does not warn users against entering a three character password. Using a three characters will result in an inability to update the password on a user-level, forcing an administrator account to make the changes.

Ruud Altenburg writes:

"I installed a copy of OS X 10.2 on colleague's a drive that had just been initialized. Not knowing the person's password, I used 'eti' as a temporary password in the setup window, allowing me to apply updates (through Software Update) and install additional programs.

"Today my colleague tried to change his temporary password into a real one. However, this proved impossible, both in the My Account preference pane, as well as under Accounts. The old password could be entered, but the rest of the dialog box was already filled in (including the new password and confirm boxes!) and greyed out, and only the Cancel button was active. When hovering the mouse over the new password box, it read that a password of at least four characters was required. On the other hand, logging in and out was not problem with this 'eti' password.

"Only then I remembered that older versions of OS X warned an insecure password on setup when three characters are used. Jaguar did not provide any warning and just let me use a three letter password."