How to choose, set and use really really safe passwords that you'll be able to remember and ......

[Anonymous]

...that will help you stay safe online

These days every online site or app you vist or use, likes you to comply with what they believe to be their unique super strong password policy and usually imposes this on you, whether you like it or not! From Costa Coffee's loyalty app's suprisingly stringenet set of hoops to jump through,  to your bank or building societies only to be expected strong account access procrdures theres no getting away from it.

The policy is designed to enhance computer security by encouraging you to employ strong passwords and use them properly. This means different things to different organsiastions but usualy it means having a unique password of varying length thats impossibe to guess,  of specific length ranges, 6-20 characters and so on.And usualy includes a combination of lowercase, uppercase, number s and special symbols. Ans that dont include easy to guess things like birthdays or usernames
Now the people who come up with this stuff are all computer nerds and write their code in computer language  and would like you to have 20 different passwords that look something like this.
3dJ6Uds'%5Wxm>h4L~A(
with this as a hint:
3 drip JACK 6 USA drip skype ' % 5 WALMART xbox music > hulu 4 LAPTOP ~ APPLE (

I used  a' password  generator'  with the criteria as listed below  to come up with this and its strong enough to use as a nuclear missile launch code..
Password Length: 20
Include Symbols: e.g. @#$%
Include Numbers: e.g. 123456
)Include Lowercase Characters: e.g. abcdefgh
Include Uppercase Characters: e.g. ABCDEFGH
Exclude Similar Characters: e.g. i, l, 1, L, o, 0, O

But good luck trying to remember one let alone 20!!

so lets try a different approch this time I generated 4 random words which were 5 letter each, using a random word generater site https://randomwordgenerator.com and got

crash first sharp widen

Just as they are, they make a pretty strong password, which using  a simple memory trick, is supereasy to remember

Picture a car crash first then a sharp giant knife cutting into it and making the gap widen

Now lets make it even more random and crucially fit the rules

Cr@shF1rstSh@rpw1den

ie capitalizing the first, and third words & replacing the a with an @ ; and then i with 1 but you could use another special character and number as you prefer.

Now lets try as far as practical to obey the uniquiness rule.

The longer the password the harder ir is to crack but then the harder it is to type so lets split it in two

Cr@shF1rst
Sh@rpw1den

Now acording to howsecureismypassword.net

crash first sharp widen = 84 quintillion yearsfor a computer to crack
Cr@shF1rstSh@rpw1den = 336 sextillion years

but only
Cr@shF1rst = 6 years
Sh@rpw1den = 6 years

so what you needto do is make each word slightly longer and unique to the site you are using it on  by adding more easy to remembers characters at the end, so fo MyO2 you could add My02

Cr@shF1rstMy02 = 204 million years
 

or if you have numbers in your user name like Nigel375@gmail com then use those

Sh@rpw1den375 = 3 million years

and if you need a super strrong password for your bank say, then use the whole password and add the last four digits of your long debit card number eg 5209

Cr@shF1rstSh@rpw1den5209 = 1 octillion years

And as long as you never write the words down,  or let anyone else know what they are then you have very very strong, and easy to rmember passwords

[Poppysmum]

@AnonymousI would never remember any password that looked like those .

Thanks for posting the information but i will stick to my own passwords

[Anonymous]

Fair enough but you might want to https://howsecureismypassword.net them first . 

And at root it's only three or four short words to remember, and a couple of rules. And if you wanted use words that are more linked that works too.

Red white black

Red white black

Redwh1tebl@ck

Redwh1tebl@ck678 if your usermame @Poppysmum were poppysmum678@gmail com

4 quadrillion years to crack that.!!

[pgn]

Even biometric methods can be circumvented... 

[Anonymous]

Yeah muggers carrying cleavers to take the thumb that will unlock the phone that makes the payment that buys the stuff...

Much safer with a 10 -20 character uncrackable password.

[MI5]

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@pgn wrote:

Even biometric methods can be circumvented... 

True

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[Anonymous]

And don't forget voice impersonation software - nothings as safe as a good strong password!!!

[Poppysmum]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Fair enough but you might want to https://howsecureismypassword.net them first . 

And at root it's only three or four short words to remember, and a couple of rules. And if you wanted use words that are more linked that works too.

Red white black

Red white black

Redwh1tebl@ck

Redwh1tebl@ck678 if your usermame @Poppysmum were poppysmum678@gmail com

4 quadrillion years to crack that.!!

I understand these passwords better thanks @Anonymous

Not like mine but i work on a similar basis to what you are saying

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[Poppysmum]

I have never used the fingerprint or voice recognition 

I always wonder what if you cut said finger or have a sore throat 

[Anonymous]

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@Poppysmum wrote:

I understand these passwords better thanks @Anonymous

Not like mine but i work on a similar basis to what you are saying

Excellent work PM, as long as it's not in this list of the most popular passwords of 2017 😛

1. 123456 (Unchanged from Previous Year)

2. Password (Unchanged)

3. 12345678 (Up 1)

4. qwerty (Up 2)

5. 12345 (Down 2)

6. 123456789 (New)

7. letmein (New)

8. 1234567 (Unchanged)

9. football (Down 4)

10. iloveyou (New)

11. admin (Up 4)

12. welcome (Unchanged)

13. monkey (New)

14. login (Down 3)

15. abc123 (Down 1)

16. starwars (New)

17. 123123 (New)

18. dragon (Up 1)

19. passw0rd (Down 1)

20. master (Up 1)

21. hello (New)

22. freedom (New)

23. whatever (New)

24. qazwsx (New)

25. trustno1 (New)