Passwords should have three characteristics: they should be long (mine are often 20 or more characters), difficult to guess (stay away from dictionary words and if you know 3 can be used as an “E” and 1 as an “I” so do the hackers), and easy to remember.
In the latter, use phrases. One of my retired passwords is baseball_Ruth_60HR_1927. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in 1927. I haven’t used this password since the 1990s.
The problem is that a lot of sites have $illy-@ss rules for creating passwords: they have to be at least 6 characters long (too short), must contain two upper case letters, two lower case letters, two numbers and two punctuation marks but only certain ones and not others.
mySister’sNameIsEileen is a much better password than Gf6^D3k_. The latter can be cracked in 8 hours, the former in 42 sextillion years. I’m not sure how long that is, but it’s a pretty long time.
After searching through all the bits and pieces of paper with scrawled passwords on them, I finally started a log book…not done yet…..the book is a phone directory alphabetically. And easy to search….why didn’t I do this in the beginning? OY
I worked for an analysis agency for 30 years and watched main frame computers evolve into desktops and then laptops. The projects we worked on often involved different agencies, different companies, and even different countries. We had separate computer systems for different security levels and we had a personal password for each one (a password was series of random letters, numbers, and characters (and at least one capital). Originally, passwords had to be 7 characters long but that grew to 13 by the time I retired. There were very specific rules: Passwords could not form any recognizable word or acronym, could not be typed on only one side of the keyboard [rather difficult for a one-armed teammate], and were not supposed to be written down anywhere. All passwords had to be changed every 90 days and also whenever personnel changed. And passwords could never be reused. The IT guys may not have been able to fix your computer problem but they did know when you tried to reuse a password.
Each project had a password and different sections of the project and every database had separate passwords. (Projects were divided into sections by topic and also for security and proprietary reasons.) We weren’t a large agency, so most of us headed up one main projects and assisted with two or three others. That’s a lot of passwords. Once, when I was testing a simulation being developed for my project, it involved 28 different passwords involved (14 on the unclassified system and 14 on the classified system). Don’t ask me how I “remembered” them all, because that’s classified.
BigBoy almost 2 years ago
The one with 8 dots is PASSWORD
jasonsnakelover almost 2 years ago
Allen Ludden was remembered.
mr_sherman Premium Member almost 2 years ago
I think I have a few members in that group.
MichaelAxelFleming almost 2 years ago
Password123
Meg: All Seriousness Aside almost 2 years ago
I tried to set my password to fortnight and the computer said it was too weak.
Vilyehm almost 2 years ago
One time, a number, a punctuation mark, and an upper case letter started a support group…..
Doug K almost 2 years ago
If it would help, your loved ones did try hard to find you.
dflak almost 2 years ago
Passwords should have three characteristics: they should be long (mine are often 20 or more characters), difficult to guess (stay away from dictionary words and if you know 3 can be used as an “E” and 1 as an “I” so do the hackers), and easy to remember.
In the latter, use phrases. One of my retired passwords is baseball_Ruth_60HR_1927. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in 1927. I haven’t used this password since the 1990s.
The problem is that a lot of sites have $illy-@ss rules for creating passwords: they have to be at least 6 characters long (too short), must contain two upper case letters, two lower case letters, two numbers and two punctuation marks but only certain ones and not others.
mySister’sNameIsEileen is a much better password than Gf6^D3k_. The latter can be cracked in 8 hours, the former in 42 sextillion years. I’m not sure how long that is, but it’s a pretty long time.
Lee26 Premium Member almost 2 years ago
Now, I got 20 character passwords and don’t have to remember them, due to my Password Mgr. I love it!
Zebrastripes almost 2 years ago
After searching through all the bits and pieces of paper with scrawled passwords on them, I finally started a log book…not done yet…..the book is a phone directory alphabetically. And easy to search….why didn’t I do this in the beginning? OY
uniquename almost 2 years ago
They could join with the lost-socks-in-the-dryer support group.
spaced man spliff almost 2 years ago
Just type in a row of dots for the password.
GreenT267 almost 2 years ago
I worked for an analysis agency for 30 years and watched main frame computers evolve into desktops and then laptops. The projects we worked on often involved different agencies, different companies, and even different countries. We had separate computer systems for different security levels and we had a personal password for each one (a password was series of random letters, numbers, and characters (and at least one capital). Originally, passwords had to be 7 characters long but that grew to 13 by the time I retired. There were very specific rules: Passwords could not form any recognizable word or acronym, could not be typed on only one side of the keyboard [rather difficult for a one-armed teammate], and were not supposed to be written down anywhere. All passwords had to be changed every 90 days and also whenever personnel changed. And passwords could never be reused. The IT guys may not have been able to fix your computer problem but they did know when you tried to reuse a password.
Each project had a password and different sections of the project and every database had separate passwords. (Projects were divided into sections by topic and also for security and proprietary reasons.) We weren’t a large agency, so most of us headed up one main projects and assisted with two or three others. That’s a lot of passwords. Once, when I was testing a simulation being developed for my project, it involved 28 different passwords involved (14 on the unclassified system and 14 on the classified system). Don’t ask me how I “remembered” them all, because that’s classified.