Untrue. I work for a global enterprise company that transacts hundreds of millions of dollars via LE certs.
The reason is "asymmetric routing". The return ping packets are traveling a different route on the way out than on the way back.
This implies they're storing the plaintext password.Ideally the password would be hashed with a salt and then stored. Then it's a fixed length field and it shouldn't matter how long the password is.
The execute bit on directories allows for traversal of the directory (i.e. allows you to cd in), while the read bit allows for listing the directory contents (e.g. ls).
Need plenty of room for their crystal balls.