Create Virtually Unbreakable Passowrds

[astrangerhere]

Thanks to the comic genius of the xkcd folks, we now have a password generator that can create passwords as good as your imagination can make them. I teach my students to remember legal concepts in a similar fashion and found this a very neat idea.

Check out the original comic strip HERE and check out the actual password generator HERE.

[The Terminator]

This is what I do, here's an example; take messagelist and then move your fingers to the right one key and up one key you would then get k4eewy4p9e6. Which unless I'm mistaken is a fairly hard password.

[AnneT]

I have a similar way of generating paswords, but I take care to always have uppercase characters and non-alfanumeric characters in the string.
e.g. start (always) with $, then the first four characters of the place/site/app you want a password for and change them according to your system. Insert 7%8 (always the same string), add word that has (for you) a connection to the place/site/app (e.g. 'boek', dutch for book for this site), but change every second letter to upper case.

[Angst]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

Thanks to the comic genius of the xkcd folks, we now have a password generator that can create passwords as good as your imagination can make them. I teach my students to remember legal concepts in a similar fashion and found this a very neat idea.

Check out the original comic strip HERE and check out the actual password generator HERE.

The problem is having 10 different passwords that need to be changed, (mandatory), every six weeks. (Plus 50 different passwords for internet sites). It is impossible to remember all of the passwords, especially the ones that rotate. Three wrong guesses and you're locked out until the help desk employees arrive the next morning. The primary reason for using the first password format is that you only have to remember one password and the current number. (Increment the number by one every password rotation).

For rotating passwords, the first method is much easier to remember. I am much more likely to lose my job if I'm locked out of my account, (very high probability), and can't deal with an "emergency" than if someone hacks my password, (very low probability).

For internet sites I have a password program that generates and stores random passwords so I don't have to remember them; just the password for the program.