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What's the specific use case that benefits from a shorter key?

The only interaction I can ever see having with this key is putting it into and taking it out of my password manager....

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The article specifically suggests writing the key down in a notebook. A single incorrect digit and the scheme fails much later in a way catastrophic to the user.

Signal asks you to repeat the key immediately before even enabling backups. It cannot fail much later unless you modify the digit after the check.

A longer key makes typing a bunch of characters back into the phone much less usable.

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