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Author Topic: How many passwords do you have? Edwin Schwing Expert Film Handler Posts: 116 From: Las Vegas NV Registered: May 2002 posted 09-03-2005 03:01 AM                     I think I have about 27 different passwords right now. Don't ask me to name them, because I won't! Don't ask me to name them, because I CAN'T!!! Between work's different password requirements and my personal "requirements" I can't keep track! Heaven forbid I should ever need to think of a new password, I would never know how to remember it. I hope my "e" machine keeps up for a few years, cause I don't think I can even remeber 4 of my passwords! Heck, I don't even know my password for Film-tech! Some of my "famous" former passwords include... spiderman batman thematrix names of former boyfriends pet names old addresses other movies generic things like, Coke, Pepsi, Dr.Evil, philhill, etc etc. (yes, I do capitalize my passwords) And then "they" make me change it... UGH (hmm, UGH may be a good password some day...) E  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 09-03-2005 04:42 AM                     Well, here's one idea. #1 Get yourself a gmail or yahoo or hotmail account and make sure you can remember that password. #2 Email that account one email per password with the name of each website in the subject header and the username / password in the email body. #3 Don't give out that email address to anyone, so you won't get hit with spam overloading it.  |  IP: Logged Edwin Schwing Expert Film Handler Posts: 116 From: Las Vegas NV Registered: May 2002 posted 09-03-2005 04:55 AM                     At one time I was actually "lucky" enough to have a "yahoo" a "hotmail" and an "aol" all with the same LOGIN and PASSWORD. Not a good idea, but it worked for a while... (I was young and dumb..) (no longer, of course.) And what else did you say Brad? It made no sense. E  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 09-03-2005 05:36 AM                     The idea is to create yourself one email account online that has all of your account names and passwords in for everything you do online so when you forget a password, it's easily recovered. (I shouldn't have to say this, but just in case...don't use it for stuff like online banking!)  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-03-2005 11:00 AM                     quote: Edwin Schwing Some of my "famous" former passwords include... spiderman batman thematrix names of former boyfriends pet names old addresses other movies generic things like, Coke, Pepsi, Dr.Evil, philhill, etc etc. (yes, I do capitalize my passwords) Those are some of the weakest passwords you could ever have. Any word which is in an ordinary dictionary should be OUT. There is something called a "dictionary attack", whereby a hacker reverse engineers the password system by comparing known words to the "hash" passwords stored in the computer he is attacking. When he gets a match he has found out your password and is free to roam your account. By using UNCOMMON words and words which are NOT related to you or your life you exponentially increase the amount of time required for said dictionary attack to be successful. When the hacker realizes that it's taking too long to get your password he'll (hopefully) give up and move on to easier targets. I use words like "GoGoDoggy" and "FratiStat". Essentially, nonsense words but if you chose them out of your fertile imagination they are something you will probably always remember... AND other people will almost never figure them out. I have a couple of passwords that, even if I verbally told you what the password was, you'd never get it. You'd stand there and say, "Huh?!"  |  IP: Logged Bob Maar (Maar stands for Maartini) Posts: 28608 From: New York City & Newport, RI Registered: Feb 2001 posted 09-03-2005 11:17 AM                        My password incluce in no specific order: Brad01 Miller01 Joe01 Redifer01 Phil01 Hill01 Randy01 Stankey01 Then each month they become 02 the 03 then 04 etc.  |  IP: Logged Paul Mayer Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under! Posts: 3836 From: Albuquerque, NM Registered: Feb 2000 posted 09-03-2005 11:43 AM                        One of the aerospace companies I worked for required us to change our login passwords every month or every quarter. Which is a pain if you keep with the spirit of the policy and truly change the password. I admit I actually did something like Bob Maar's approach, just added a number and incremented it. Lazy and compromising yes, but with riding REA on half a dozen or so software projects at any given time I had better things to do than try to come up with really different passwords and remembering them every month.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-03-2005 12:28 PM                        This is why forced password aging is a bad idea. It doesn't actually improve security and may reduce it, since it encourages people to write down their passwords and leave the written-down passwords in obvious places. Sending passwords via unencrypted email is also a bad idea. I have several passwords. I have a couple of passwords that I use for stuff that I really care about (shell accounts, ssh/VPN access at work, etc.), a couple for stuff that I sort-of care about (like this forum), and one for stuff that I really don't care about at all if it were to be compromised. I never use the "save password" function in a web browser or other software and remembering half a dozen or so passwords isn't a big deal. My preferred way to come up with a non-obvious password is to take a phrase (for example, the first line of a favorite book) and use the first (or last) letter from each word in a series and add in a couple of numbers or other non-alpha-numeric characters. This should result in a string which isn't a dictionary word and thus isn't easily crackable.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 09-03-2005 12:33 PM                     So Scott, something like SNizK3W1! would be acceptable, eh? (Seriously, Scott comes up with some great passwords that are easy to remember, yet damn near impossible to crack, like my quick "Scott Norwood is cool" example above.)  |  IP: Logged Dieter Depypere Master Film Handler Posts: 343 From: Deutsch-Wagram, Lower Austria, Austria Registered: May 2005 posted 09-03-2005 01:29 PM                     I use pw's with not less than 12 characters (letters and numbers randomly put together). Works quite well.  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 09-03-2005 06:37 PM                  I can never remember anything so I always just use "password01" as my password for everything...  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 09-04-2005 05:04 PM                        For really important accounts that I care about (e.g. online banking), I use things like my employee number from a previous job, or a friend's phone number before they moved house: in short, a seemingly random collection of characters, but one I've already memorised and which isn't written down anywhere else in my home or office documents. This also means that I can write down a 'reminder phrase' (for example, writing 'Password - Serena's old 'phone number' on a bank letter), knowing that it'll tell me what the password is but will be meaningless if that piece of paper falls into the wrong hands. Beware of 'x-rated' passwords! Many years ago, when at university, I heard an interview with a very irritating Welsh person on the radio. That afternoon I logged in to the university's network for the first time and had to set my password. With the broadcast fresh in my mind, I set it to 'sheepshagger' (a term of endearment the English use to describe the Welsh sometimes). A few weeks later, I was unable to log in and had to go to the helpdesk. The lady at the desk, who had a Welsh accent, said: 'Err, OK, I'll see if it works here. What's your password?'  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 09-08-2005 01:00 PM                        Good passwords can be formed from the first letters and numbers of an easily remembered phrase, e.g., "My 3 year old cat's name is Tiger" = M3yocniT or "Here is my 1 password for Film-Tech" = Him1pfFT  |  IP: Logged

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