What I meant by saying that the spec was broken is that the user is going to be typing the password at a keyboard.  The keyboard will generate scan codes.  Those scan codes will get interpreted through a system-specific chain of processes until some bytes or some unicode characters are generated.  What's to say that the password typed on the keyboard where the password is set up is going to be a binary match for the password entered on the keyboard used for authentication?

Which doesn't change the fact that if the spec calls for binary, nttplib should support binary.