How to choose a password

[gear junkie]

What's the best way? Is it best to have one 8-14 character password for everything or shorter ones for different sites? The reason why I said shorter ones is because I only have enough room for 1 long password. Anymore than that and I start writing stuff down.

[HouseOfAtlas]

Ben,

Usually longer passwords are better. For example ridgid85085protool would be a pretty hard password to hack :D

Also, that is just what I've read. Usually I have a few passwords. The important ones are a bit longer than the other ones that I don't really care if they are hacked.

[MrsSeatDown]

The important thing is to come up with something you can remember easily. I hate when Rick wakes me up in the middle of the night to ask me for the password to his online bank accounts.

The safest passwords have a combination of letters numbers and symbols.

[HouseOfAtlas]

The important thing is to come up with something you can remember easily. I hate when Rick wakes me up in the middle of the night to ask me for the password to his online bank accounts.

The safest passwords have a combination of letters numbers and symbols.

I know what Rick's password is for his online banking account: K60impressonator :winknudge:

[MrsSeatDown]

I know what Rick's password is for his online banking account: K60impressonator :winknudge:

Yeah and now everyone else knows too now:D

[cpw]

What's the best way? Is it best to have one 8-14 character password for everything or shorter ones for different sites? The reason why I said shorter ones is because I only have enough room for 1 long password. Anymore than that and I start writing stuff down.

There are several theories. One is that you should use something that is pretty much random. Another is you should use a sequence of words strung together with random punctuation or numbers in the middle. This gives you a longer password that is easy to remember. For example, "ikea4termite-vomit". The words shouldn't actually be related like that.

I am not of that camp. I just use a few random ones with duplication, because I am lazy. If the password isn't terribly important, then just write them down or get a password vault program. If someone breaks into my house, I am not going to be most upset if they get my RIDGID forum password. I would probably care about my bank account password, but just knowing the password doesn't give you everything else (like username, what site it belongs too etc.).

[MrsSeatDown]

Ben, isn't all of this information G17 classified anyway?:D

Rick & Joey:love:

[dantheman9727]

I use 2 passwords... one that is short and easy and contains only letters that I use for most things and the 2nd is much longer, contains numbers and letters and was difficult for me to remember... I use the 2nd one for the sites that I am more concerned about

[woodenstickers]

The bad news is it is probably even more important to change your passwords often than how easy it is to guess. I'm with the banking and pay-pal being important, the rest have a theme.

I have so many passwords that I make use of my phone's vault--one password for that where you would have to be as crazy as me to guess it and it unlocks the rest of them for me to see when needed. I am also too lazy to change them every 6 months, but that is what they say you should do in case your pc has a program to capture keystrokes put on trojan style.


Eli

[Bob D.]

I keep my passwords written to a spreadsheet on a thumbdrive that is password protected, and I keep the corresponding user ids on another thumbdrive that is also password protected. these two drives are kept in separate lock boxes in different rooms of the house, actually one is in the safe in the basement and the other is in a safe behind a picture hanging on the BR wall. If I forget a password or ID its a major PITA but I fell pretty safe this way, at least I think I am . :indecisive:



Now that I have let my whole strategy out I will have to devise a new one.














Oh....wait, I'm not that paranoid, that was Mel Gibson in the movie Conspiracy Theory. I just remembered that I just try to remember them. :D But many times I can't or don't so I use a $49 biometric security device (fingerprint reader) from APC. (http://www.apcc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BIOPOD)

[SlimTim]

This is what I use
http://www.dexadine.com/free.html

It is Acerose Password vault. It is a password generator and vault. It not only generates a password of any length and security, it also stores usernames, passwords, url address for sign in, and notes.

IT'S FREE!

The only password to remember is the one to open the program (vault) on your computer screen.

It is an incredibly efficient and small program and very useful.
I highly recommend it.

And IT'S FREE!:D

[LuciKnows]

I use a program, which you can download free at the link below. It’s called Roboform. It’s very cool. It creates passwords in different levels of difficulty, stores your passwords safely, and fills out forms with protected info. I think you get 8 passwords in the free version, unlimited if you buy it – which I did a long time ago.

To go into this forum, for example, I open my browser and then click on the Roboform Passcard for the forum. It goes to the sign in page, logs me in and I’m ready to go - one click only! You can also print a backup list of the passwords. :grinning-moose:

http://www.roboform.com/download.html