Password Change. Help!

[Rolig Loon]

Keep trying.  The system really doesn't like weak passwords.  Just having letters, numerals, and extra characters doesn't necessarily make a password non-weak.  If you choose P@SSW0RD, for example, that's still about as weak as you can get.  Try something like 4$m8%q8WW. 

[Rolig Loon]

Keep trying.  The system really doesn't like weak passwords.  Just having letters, numerals, and extra characters doesn't necessarily make a password non-weak.  If you choose P@SSW0RD, for example, that's still about as weak as you can get.  Try something like 4$m8%q8WW. 

[Madelaine McMasters]

Rolig's right. There was an old adage that you should "create a password that's hard to guess, but easy to remember". Unfortunately, now that every word in any dictionary is known to password hackers, some password systems, if they recognize anything you've put in your password as a real word, will immediately reject it as "weak". So now we're forced to create passwords that are hard to remember, because they make no sense.

And then we write it on a post-it and stick it to the side of our computer.

;-).

One method I use is to pick two words, or a word and a long number, that are easy to remember. I then create a password by alternating the characters of the two words.

For example, hello there! is an easy to remember phrase. I'd turn that into htehlelroe! I certainly can't remember that password just as I've typed it, but it's not too hard for me to re-create it from memory when necessary. If the system requires at least one number and at least one punctuation mark, pick your favorites and append them. If at least one capital letter is required, alternate them.

My favorite number is 13, and we've already got the exclamation point, so I'd turn that into 13HtEhLeLrOe!

So, now the rule becomes not to create a password that you can remember, but a method for creating it that you can remember. And lastly, never give your password away, so you can bet I'll never use 13HtEhLeLrOe! as a password for anything, and neither will you.