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Advice on passwords

I need a new password that will be strong enough for people not to guess, but easy enough for me to remember. i don't want to write it down. can you recommend a good way to make a password up?


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As previously mentioned, it's not a good idea to have the same password on many sites, since if the password for one site is compromised, all of the other sites with the same password become compromised too.

 A nice idea is to use a single password that's easily remembered by you, and "salt" it with the name of the web site or application you're using it with.

"Salting" a password means inserting extra characters into the password to make it harder to guess.

So, you start with a password that you can remember. Say your son's name is Isiah. You may want to play with the capitalization, and maybe insert some numbers and symbols too.

Suppose I choose my password to be !s1aH (just replace the first i with a !, and the second i with a 1, then capitalized the H).

Now, say I need to create a google password. My salting method could be as simple as alternating characters between the name of the site and the password.

Result for google: g!oso1galHe.  See... impossible to guess.
Result for yahoo: y!ash1oaoh.

 

Or, you could alternate three characters at a time:

google: goo!s1gleaH
yahoo: yah!s1ooaH

 

You can use any strategy you like. This way, you get impossible to guess passwords unique to each site/application, but only one password to remember.

Hope that helps!


Posted 2 years ago ( permalink )
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A penny saved is a penny saved

dude your a friggin genius


Posted 1 year ago ( permalink )
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A penny saved is a penny saved

I realize I am very late, but i just had to add my passwording skills.

I have none.

I keep my password close to my computer. (note this is only good for something like a logon password).

The password is generally a serial code from some game I buy.

I write a little note, that describes the location of the password, should i forget where i keep it.  Obviously this description is not written in simple english.  It is written in a way that only I would be reminded of the hiding place.

As i write this it sounds stupid, but after a while, I have memorized a long 16 character password riddled with letters and numbers. 


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