2011-08-31, 03:25 AM
By "special characters" do you mean punctuation ($%^&*(,.'
or the sort of special characters you need to enter using a 3-digit code (at least on US/American keyboards)?
If it's the first, I'm pretty sure you can use them all (and, as far as I know, using any is quite enough to make brute-forcing your password impractical for anyone but the government or similar overpowered entities).
As for the second, I think they were at the basis of the "fort knox security" account-locking mechanism, meaning you could put them in your password when changing it, but then you couldn't enter them when logging in. Web interface has changed since then so I don't know whether that's still true. Be sure you have access to your e-mail (for a password reset) before you start experimenting with those.
or the sort of special characters you need to enter using a 3-digit code (at least on US/American keyboards)?If it's the first, I'm pretty sure you can use them all (and, as far as I know, using any is quite enough to make brute-forcing your password impractical for anyone but the government or similar overpowered entities).
As for the second, I think they were at the basis of the "fort knox security" account-locking mechanism, meaning you could put them in your password when changing it, but then you couldn't enter them when logging in. Web interface has changed since then so I don't know whether that's still true. Be sure you have access to your e-mail (for a password reset) before you start experimenting with those.