Article of the Month « Tech Lab
Devising a Strong (Secure) Password
By John Berliner
Being able to do everything online is great. You can shop, do your banking, look up addresses, maybe even find your soulmate. One of the problems is having to remember what feels like a million different username/password combinations.
Annoyingly, every online service seems to have different rules about usernames and passwords. Some require more than 6 or 8 characters, some require less; some want combinations of letters and numbers and special characters, some won’t allow numbers or special characters at all!
Because there aren’t any real standards here, it is almost impossible to get by in the real world with only one password. But you may be able to get by with two or three.
Whenever possible, especially where financial information is concerned, try to use strong passwords. A strong password is one that is long enough and complex enough that it is difficult for a password cracker or cracking program to guess. Good strong passwords will be:
1. Over 8 characters in length
2. A combination of letters, numbers and symbols
3. Easy to remember by you, hard for someone else to guess
How to Create and Remember a Strong (Secure) Password
Here's a common approach to devising a strong yet memorable password.
To begin, think of a sentence or phrase you can easily remember, like: “I rock forever and you know it, man.” Take the first letter of each word in your sentence to create a new word. In our example, this would become: Irfaykim. Try to use some uppercase characters if possible. I'll make the final "m" a capital letter: IrfaykiM. Now substitute one or more numbers or special characters in your password. I will change “forever” to “4”—as in 4ever—and I’ll substitute an “+” for “and” (note: not all providers will accept a plus sign). Then I’ll stick an exclamation mark at the end just for fun. My strong, secure password is now:
Ir4+ukiM! ("I rock forever and you know it, man!")
The first few times you type it in, it may take you a while to get adjusted to your new password. But before long, you'll know it like the back of your hand.
p.s. script kiddies, this is not my real password! But feel free to use it as your own!
