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Complex Passwords Made Simple

I don’t often post stuff like this in this space. But after seeing the click-throughs on the Sony story below, I get the impression folks are interested. I thought maybe I’d share with my readers how to make a very, very strong password that’s very easy to remember:

Analysis of passwords in Sony security breach.

First step is to pick out a favourite song and a favourite line from the song. Preferably, it should be a pretty short line, between say 6 and 15 words. For this we will use “Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow.” Lets take the first letter from each word, and we’ll end up with:

MHALLIFWWAS

Already you have a password that looks random. And its not easily guessed as would be the name of your first-born child or your dog: that makes it virtually “social engineering” proof. You’re well on your way!

Next, we’ll substitute a few numbers or punctuation marks for letters they kinda look like. Replace the “I” with a “!” (like an upside down, lower case i, get it?). Replace the “S” with a “5”:

MHALL!FWWA5

Now, we’ll only capitalize a few significant initials: “L”amb and “F”leece will do the trick. Make everything else lower case:

mhalL!Fwwa5

Bingo! Good enough for Windows, Mac, Unix or your bank account (but don’t be stupid and use this password!).

By Tommy Belknap

Owner, developer, editor of DragonFlyEye.Net, Tom Belknap is also a freelance journalist for The 585 lifestyle magazine. He lives in the Rochester area with his wife and son.

2 replies on “Complex Passwords Made Simple”

[…] But as I say, you are not in fact the NSA (unless of course you are, in which case… hi!). You don’t need to be Fort Knox online, you just need to follow a few basic procedures to keep the lower-level thugs and hooligans stymied, because the big boys don’t have time for you. But seeing as how we’re in the middle of something of a cyberwar with Anonymous and LulzSec and the rest, its worth the piece of mind to just make sure you are following those rules. First and foremost, people, get yourself a few decent passwords. […]

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