I was writing a presentation recently on encryption and one of the important things to show in the presentation is the use of strong passwords. Many of the encryption functions will use passwords as an alternate way to secure keys, and I hate showing bad habits, like “mystrongpassword” in examples.
I searched around and find some interesting tricks for creating strong passwords. These were two guides that I liked:
There are some good items in there, including the use of phrases and suffixes instead of trying to build some long word that you can easily remember. Personally I use a combination of techniques, and so far (knock on wood), my passwords have been fairly safe. At least as far as I know.
I also use Password Safe to store passwords for various sites and I keep that in synch with Dropbox across my desktop, my iPhone (pwsafe), and my Macbook Air (Password Gorilla).
This site also has tricks, but an interesting password tester as well that helps you score your passwords. A few of mine score in the mediocre range, which has me rethinking them and adding a few more characters to the length.
Lastly, if you hate typing passwords, and I completely understand that, learn to type. The better you type, at least those items you type a lot, the less hassle better security is for you.
Filed under: Blog Tagged: security, syndicated 
