Pass on the Passwords

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October 29, 2012 by readlisaread

Well, it’s happened.  The number of things I can remember has reached critical mass. I forgot a password.  Actually, I forgot 2 passwords, and one I had even put a password hint at the time I created it.  That hint is doing me NO good. Here’s the thing…. I don’t know how many passwords I have made up in my life time.  A couple of hundred, maybe…..maybe not quite that many…. and every time I create one– every SINGLE time– I smugly think “Oh I’ll never forget that”. Yeah, right.

I have a particular algorithm for creating passwords.  It is based on the name of the page and a specific method of substituting letters. That was great, until things got Complex. So I thought I would offer a little lesson on passwords.

1) Do NOT use the same password for everything, or even several things

2) Do NOT make passwords of your kids’ names, pets’ birthdays or the kind of car you drive.

3) Do NOT write them down and tape them under your keyboard.

4) Do NOT write them down and keep them near your computer.

5) Really, try not to write them down at all…

6) Most sites now are demanding a complex mix of upper case and lower case letters, numbers, and non-alpha-numeric character, and all told should be at least 6 characters long.  Phew.

There is no one-mnemonic fits all, but here is some advice. Even though I said don’t use the same password, consider using a predictable string of characters.  For example, here is one I would never use, but just to give you the idea: Let’s say your bank is the Bank of Nova Scotia, and you have a login for a Food Network Canada site. Maybe your alorithm is to take the first and last word in the site name, and use the number of words in the title for your digit, and substitute a letter with a character. “Bank of Nova Scotia” becomes: “BankScotia” (more than 6 characters, upper and lower case); there were 4 words in the title: “BankScotia4” (digit); sub a character: “Bank$cotia4” To add complexity, you could even repeat the digit the number of times it represents and put it in front: “4444Bank$cotia”. In the other example, perhaps Food Network Canada becomes: “FoodC@nada22” or “22FoodC@n@d@” or even “22FoodC@n@d@22”.  The trick is to have something that you can remember the pattern to, that isn’t easy to decode for anyone else, and that you don’t have to write down.

Now, if I can remember my password for this blog I can post this…..


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