Password Requirements: No Special Characters

We recently discovered a glitch affecting passwords that contain special characters (ex: @, #, $, $).  Special characters are transformed into a different string of characters, which results in a problem with authentication (users will receive an error message indicating their username/password could not be validated).

Recommendation: Use only alphanumeric passwords (letters, and numbers, no spaces).

Characters that are not permitted:
$
&
+
,
/ or
:
;
=
?
@
#
$
%|
< or >
{ or }
{ or }
~
^