[ QUOTE ]
This is 100% wrong. In most applications

[/ QUOTE ]
Within your first seven words you contradicted yourself. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

But you're right in the basic premise: often passwords can also be checked by staff via a checksum (correct or not correct or semi-correct).

If that were the case, I'd reasonably expect that a developer could write a system helpful enough to tell whether an attempt is one or two letters off.

But whether this is true on the desktop or not, most large institutions don't seem to use undecryptable vital information (either that or my newspapers are broken).