It is possible to disallow users from using old_passwords=1. This can be done by adding 'maximum-old_passwords=0' to your my.cnf

This prevents users from generating passwords hashes in pre-4.1 format. In MySQL 5.7 old_passwords=1 is already disabled, so this is only useful on 5.6 and earlier.

Be aware that this also restricts old_passwords=2 which is needed for sha256 hashes.

mysql> select @@old_passwords;
+-----------------+
| @@old_passwords |
+-----------------+
|               0 |
+-----------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> set old_passwords=1;
Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 sec)

mysql> show warnings;
+---------+------+----------------------------------------------+
| Level   | Code | Message                                      |
+---------+------+----------------------------------------------+
| …

The answers to the last pop quiz are up: http://www.pythian.com/blogs/868/pop-quiz-mysql-cluster

So here’s another pop quiz. Given the following:

Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 16450949 to server version: 4.1.14-standard-log

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql> select count(*),length(password) from mysql.user group by length(password);
+----------+------------------+
| count(*) | length(password) |
+----------+------------------+
|       49 |               16 |
|       31 |               41 |
+----------+------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select password('foo');
+-------------------------------------------+
| password('foo')                           |
+-------------------------------------------+
| *F3A2A51A9B0F2BE2468926B4132313728C250DBF | …