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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!).