Hacker News Reader

Comment by sarciszewski | Hacker News Reader

https://github.com/resonantcore/lib/blob/master/js/diceware/...

https://github.com/resonantcore/lib/blob/master/demo/dicewar...

Run this locally, e.g.

    dw = new Diceware();
    dw.load("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/resonantcore/lib/master/js/diceware/diceware.wordlist.asc", function() {
        console.log("Diceware loaded!");
    });

    console.log(dw.getWords(8).join(' '));

View on HN

If you're on linux you can usually just do:

    shuf -n 5 /usr/share/dict/words

On Mac OS X you need coreutils for shuf, which you can get from brew (it's called gshuf once installed).

To get rid of the newlines

    shuf -n 4 /usr/share/dict/words | xargs | sed 's/ //g'

Or slightly more simply:

    echo `shuf -n 5 /usr/share/dict/words`

Maybe add this to your .bashrc file?

    randword()
    {
      if [ -z $1 ]; then
        echo `shuf --random-source=/dev/urandom -n 5 /usr/share/dict/words`
      else
        echo `shuf --random-source=/dev/urandom -n $1 /usr/share/dict/words`
      fi
    }

Test output:

    kobra@stormforge blah $ randword 4
    crackpots fragmentation maximally Bradly's
    kobra@stormforge blah $ randword 6
    turnover's nonproliferation's bestowal's sulkier hillbilly Narmada
    kobra@stormforge blah $ randword
    Marciano fibulas roadwork mobilizations organics
    kobra@stormforge blah $ randword
    coins bronzed housemother's forefather supposing

I would be very cautious about using shuf for password generation, since it doesn't use a cryptographically-secure random number generator (I just checked the source).

Edit: I see that shuf permits the use of custom seeds, so you can do the following, and it will be secure:

    shuf -n 5 --random-source=/dev/urandom /usr/share/dict/words

Or:

  python -c 'import random;w=open("/usr/share/dict/words").readlines();print " ".join([random.choice(w).strip() for _ in range(5)])'

Reply on news.ycombinator.com