This package provides an interface to the cracklib (libcrack) libraries that come standard on most unix-like distributions. This allows you to check passwords against dictionaries of words to ensure some minimal level of password security. From the cracklib README CrackLib makes literally hundreds of tests to determine whether you've chosen a bad password. * It tries to generate words from your username and gecos entry to tries to match them against what you've chosen. * It checks for simplistic patterns. * It then tries to reverse-engineer your password into a dictionary word, and searches for it in your dictionary. - after all that, it's PROBABLY a safe(-ish) password. 8-) WWW: http://pecl.php.net/package/crack