What's With the Dice?

Learning Ukulele with Curt

Diceware is a method for picking a passphrase that uses ordinary dice to select words at random from a special list called, the Diceware Word List. The original diceware word list consists of a line for each of the 7,776 possible five-die combinations.

Page Updated:
4 September 2025

Sample Diceware Passphrase: spur-bessel-crud-owl-almost-mateo-lot

Refresh the browser page for a NEW passphrase.

Diceware

It's about securing your digital life.

(wikiwand) — Diceware is a method for creating passphrases, passwords, and other cryptographic variables using ordinary dice as a hardware random number generator. For each word in the passphrase, five rolls of a six-sided die are required. The numbers from 1 to 6 that come up in the rolls are assembled as a five-digit number, e.g. 43146. That number is then used to look up a word in a Diceware (cryptographic) Word List . In the original Diceware list 43146 corresponds to munch. By generating several words in sequence, a lengthy passphrase can thus be constructed randomly.

The original diceware word list consists of a line for each of the 7,776 possible five-die combinations.

xkcd.com/936/

And, Thanks to Donald J. Trump Person-Woman-Man-Camera-TV is no longer a good passphrase. And, 2025 he's at it again with three new words we can't user.

The level of unpredictability of a Diceware passphrase can be easily calculated: each word adds 12.9 bits of entropy to the passphrase. Originally, in 1995, Diceware creator Arnold Reinhold considered five words (64 bits) the minimal length needed by average users. However, starting in 2014, Reinhold recommends that at least six words (77 bits) should be used.

Please confirm that no one has ever had a copy of your private key and that it uses a strong passphrase. Assume your adversary is capable of one trillion guesses per second. — Edward Snowden, January 2013

Resources & Links

(wikiwand) Diceware
martbock/laravel-diceware
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Diceware - EFF
Diceware Password Generator • Douglas Muth , and I am a software engineer in Philadelphia, PA.
Diceware Password Generator • Stephen Ostermiller
Mira Modi. A tenth grader in New York City, sells strong, secure passwords. UPDATED 2025: Mira is now a senior at Barnard College in New York City.
The Best Password Managers to Secure Your Digital Life

FAQ: What are some BAD use cases for Diceware?

You should not use Diceware in any cases where it is highly likely an attacker can get a copy of your encrypted password and use high-volume cracking attempts against it. A bad case--possibly the worst case--for using Diceware would be to secure your BitCoin wallet, because all BitCoin nodes have a copy of the BitCoin Ledger, and an attacker could attempt password cracking your wallet. (source: https://diceware.dmuth.org/)

🚀 🚧 End of LearningUkulele.com Site Content 🚧 🌍

NOTE: PICS ARE FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. FAIR USE NOTICE:: This site contains images of which have not been pre-authorized. This material is made available for the purpose of analysis, teaching, comment and critique. The 'fair use' of such material is provided for under U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with U.S. Code Title 17, Section 107, material on this site (along with credit and attributions to original sources) is viewable for educational and intellectual purposes - (frwebgate.access.gpo.gov). If you are interested in using any copyrighted material from this site for any reason that goes beyond 'fair use,' you must first obtain permission from the copyright owner.

On the web since 1992 and a Mac since 1987 (Mac II) • Serving up Ukulele content since 2003 ( 22 years ago ) • Lets Kanikapila!!! v12.36.1 (8.2.23) • And, since Sept 2020, happily on Pop!_OS Linux & COSMIC-DE and a System76 Thelio . Half the cost of the iMac and a real treat to use. I use it for ALL development work. Only wish the Affinity Suite of apps by serif where available on Linux (and I do know you can run them in Wine with a few hacks).

This sit has ben profesionaly red. awl tpyos aree free and no aditonal chrge • I'm blaming it on “jazz” fingers. “Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.”

Site developed, hand-coded, and maintained by Curt Sheller, Curt Sheller Publications , Pottstown, PA 19464 USA, North America, Northern Hemisphere, Earth, Solar System / Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, Virgo Supercluster, Laniakea Supercluster, Observable Universe ... and hosted on DigitalOcean , eCommerce using stripe , managed using Laravel Forge , and analytics (which we DO NOT share) by Plausible . See the LearningUkulele.com Site Credits page for credit to all the hardware, software, tools, and goodies we use to build this amazing site. A proverbial digital blob of music information.

Love LearningUkulele.com–Learning Ukulele with Curt * Show your support!

Support development via a monthly membership or a one-time Forever membership! Learn more

Sign-Up Today …