Comment 10 Character Key? (Score 1) 70
From the article:
The dongle (Scrambler) uses 4 keys / passwords.
1 - 10 characters long is used to identify clusters (when more than one dongle is used to boost throughput).
2 - this is the actual key for SHA1-HMAC
3 - this is used for initialisation vectors.
4 - encryption key for remote commands ENSCRAMBLE and ENGETID. This key is shared with the client (Wordpress in our case) to provide end-to-end encryption of passwords sent for scrambling.
Here are the details from the article about key lengths, etc.
S-CRIB Scrambler Design Basics We use the same hardware as for our Password S-CRIB and only re-implemented the firmware to add required functionality. The keys / passwords now have 32 characters so they can be directly used with AES-256. Each password can give provide up to 199 bits of entropy as we use 76 different characters. The source of passwords is a combination of a "dongle key" (unique for each Scrambler) and a random SHA1 key generated using microsecond timer applied on communication between Scrambler and the host PC.