Simulating login attempts

Since we can't easily find login attempt data from a breach (it's not typically shared due to its sensitive nature), we will be simulating it. Simulation requires a strong understanding of statistical modeling, estimating probabilities of certain events, and identifying appropriate assumptions to simplify where necessary. In order to run the simulation, we will build a Python package (login_attempt_simulator) to simulate a login process requiring a correct username and password (without any extra authentication measures, such as two-factor authentication) and a script (simulate.py) that can be run on the command line, both of which we will discuss in this section.

Assumptions

Before we jump into the code that handles the simulation, we need to understand the assumptions. It is impossible to control for every possible variable when we make a simulation, so we must identify some simplifying assumptions to get started.

The simulator makes the...