"a function of the size of your character pool, because if your password is short enough for n-1 to contain a significant percentage of possible combinations then it's probably already short enough to brute force anyway"
This seems to say that a small character pool, aka "n-1 containing a significant percentage of possible combinations", implies that your password is "probably already short enough to brute force".
So small character pool means that "probably" the password is short/weak.
I'm saying that a small character pool does not imply that a password is "probably" short/weak.
And to be very clear: Using the size of the character pool to say it's "probably" weak is a form of "reliably predict[ing] if n is sufficient".
> So small character pool means that "probably" the password is short/weak.
I really don't know how you came to that conclusion. I never claimed any dependence between the character pool length and password length. They're obviously completely separate properties.
You said that if a password of length n-1 "contains a significant percentage of combinations" compared to a password with length n then "it's probably already short enough to brute force".
Right?
That percentage comes entirely from the character pool.
So character pool -> percentage -> probably short enough to brute force.
What am I reading wrong? The only assumption I made is "compared to a password with length n", because what else would you be comparing length "n-1" to. Otherwise it's a direct quote.
But we don't seem to be resolving anything so I'll just hope you have a good week.