Tip of the week: useful passwords
I seem to spend most of my day entering passwords; for Windows, for websites, sometimes just to open documents and ZIP files.
My wife has a great tip for passwords. She uses them as reminders. For example, “eatsomefruit” or “drinkmorewater” or “gooutrunning.” Not only are these passwords easy to remember and longer than the average password so somewhat more secure, they are also useful.
(PS Get Safe Online has good advice on choosing strong passwords.)
Robert wrote:
Very, very, very good password idea from Matthew’s wise wife.
I have no doubt that mine will be GETALIFE
Posted on 25-Sep-06 at 7:50 am | Permalink
iScatterlings » Blog Archive » Got the password Blues? wrote:
[...] Over at Bad Language, Matthew provides us with his wife’s brilliant idea for new password generation. [...]
Posted on 25-Sep-06 at 7:58 am | Permalink
Jude wrote:
When I worked for the Social Security Administration, we had to change our passwords every month, and they had to include letters and numbers. Also, you had to wait 6 months before you could reuse a password. I went through every member of my family, inserting their ages after the first four letters of their names. It was a system which I’ve maintained to an extent, although now I’m more likely to use a random word with a particular number. Although I have no desire for my password to nag me, I do like GETALIFE.
Posted on 25-Sep-06 at 1:50 pm | Permalink
Owen Lystrup wrote:
Matthew, your wife is smarter than you.
I’m guessing that’s part of why you married her.
Posted on 25-Sep-06 at 6:58 pm | Permalink
Matthew Stibbe wrote:
Smarter than me and better looking!
Posted on 25-Sep-06 at 7:14 pm | Permalink
Gustavo wrote:
Hmmm… Can be a good idea… for some time… until password crackers start to use that approach.
In passworddom, easy to remember = easy to break.
Cheers.
Posted on 25-Sep-06 at 7:51 pm | Permalink
Eric wrote:
Similar, but I found mnemonics to better (i.e. secure)
Example: OA23!mml
Translation: On August 23, I married my love.
Note: Mixed case, non-word based, includes characters and numbers, AND is a easy to remember mnemonic based on the sentance. You can even work some postive affirmations in to your sentances, example: D20lylZO
Translation: Do 20 laps, you lazy oaf
Posted on 26-Sep-06 at 12:11 am | Permalink
Lifehacker wrote:
Passwords as reminders…
The Bad Language weblog recommends setting your most oft-used passwords to helpful reminders. For example, the author suggests trying out passwords like “eatsomefruit,” “drinkmorewater,” or “gooutrunning” to keep your daily health goals in mind….
Posted on 27-Sep-06 at 9:00 pm | Permalink
pinkdots wrote:
Good idea but very unsecure . You’d better get a password manager like Roboform or Web Replay.
Posted on 27-Sep-06 at 9:56 pm | Permalink
Joel Anderson wrote:
Absolutely! I’ve been preaching something like this for a long time - but I eschew wimpy passwords. Where I can my passwords are phrases, and inspiring quotations at around ~50 characters. Maybe not what you want to type all the time - but it forces you to rehearse something you WANT to remember, not just a silly password. People are such memorization wimps - use your password to STRETCH your memory!
Posted on 28-Sep-06 at 2:03 am | Permalink
andhapp wrote:
I have a simple rule…Password should be made up of two bits of information = +.
generic bit - Which is the common bit in all your passwords.
random bit - This bit changes with every other password for example for your work login you can use the company name as the suffix with the date you started on. Some piece of information which is not everyone knows about.
Now million bucks question - Is it secure?? Nothing is secure. Security is a combination of anti-virus + monitoring the systems…
Posted on 28-Sep-06 at 8:28 am | Permalink
Sorel Top wrote:
I use abbreviated Bible verses such as Pslms123. The possible combinations are endless. It wouldn’t work for everyone, but at least it mixes alpha and numeric characters and reminds me of salient passages of scripture.
Posted on 09-Oct-06 at 7:26 pm | Permalink
Robin wrote:
I have a simple rule - I save to favourites and then immediately rename with the username and password.
We have so many systems passwords which constantly require changing that this is the easiest way for me to remember - where it is and what gets me inside without the assistance of some systems administrator or quizz question.
Posted on 05-Dec-06 at 2:36 pm | Permalink
DifferentStrokes wrote:
Drop the Micro$oft Windoze world altogether. No worries about viruses or password crackers with most other OS. With some other OS, you can even disable (or not enable) an Admin account, therefore limiting any password phisher from doing anything malicious to your machine (granted your logged in level of permissions). Come on, it’s time to make your move…
Posted on 02-Jul-08 at 5:27 pm | Permalink