'How to have lots of passwords without struggling to remember them' blog discussion

SteveNewstead · 4 May 2011 at 5:06PM

The worst mistake people make with passwords is to just use a word from the dictionary.

This is why complex passwords are pushed by people as being important, for example so a password of "hello" is much less secure than "[email protected]"

However people could happily use 3 words followed by spaces such as

"my secure password"

A password like this would take forever to crack and contains little complexity for the user to remember (and stops passwords being written down).

The important thing to remember is that a password cracker cannot guess each individual word when you set a password it either guesses all of it or none at all, so although a password like "my secure password" does not look complex enough it is would take longer than you would live for a hacker to crack.

As a new user I'm not allowed to post links, but if you search for the following in google then the above is covered in some good detail "the-usability-of-passwords-faq"

Also as suggested by a previous user, something like keypass is a god-send.

Hope this helps!

EmehEm2005 · 4 May 2011 at 11:48PM

I've just logged in to MSE using a paid-for version of the unlimited-entry Password Agent, which I've used without any problems for years; there is also a free Lite version available which is fully functional, only limited to 25 entries per file.

I can recommend moonsoftwaredotcom, the developer of this software.

I have also used Keepass, which is basically the same idea.

lovebooks_2 · 5 May 2011 at 12:00AM

This is interesting, as I just use Firefoxs built-in version. Is it safe to use that, or would I be better using an alternative?

EmehEm2005 · 5 May 2011 at 1:10AM

lovebooks wrote: »

This is interesting, as I just use Firefoxs built-in version. Is it safe to use that, or would I be better using an alternative?

Ah, forgot about Firefox's password software, Opera do a similar one too.

Have not used Firefox's but here's an article for it -
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Master_password

Opera's:
http://help.opera.com/Windows/10.53/en/wand.html

tropicaltopaz · 5 May 2011 at 7:31AM

EmehEm2005 wrote: »

Ah, forgot about Firefox's password software, Opera do a similar one too.

Thanks EmehEm, I started wondering how safe my passwords that Firefox stores are, when you mentioned the master password, which I've never thought to use before even thought I've seen it in passing. I'll still only ever store my banking passwords and certain other critical ones in my head though.

btw an old car reg which comes with letters and numbers - some just stick in my head for some reason would be impossible to guess, although perhaps I will get told they're too short.

JHC · 5 May 2011 at 10:18AM

When I was at my last job the IT Dept there insisted we all change our passwords every 3 months "for security". Although I can see the idea, I wonder how much it really increased the system security, especially as we tended to just increase the last number each time (susan1, susan2 etc).

lovebooks_2 · 5 May 2011 at 11:11AM

EmehEm2005 wrote: »

Ah, forgot about Firefox's password software, Opera do a similar one too.

Have not used Firefox's but here's an article for it -
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Master_password

Opera's:
http://help.opera.com/Windows/10.53/en/wand.html

Thanks for the links. I've used for a long time, but was worried about security.

GlasWolf · 6 May 2011 at 5:44AM

Those who use Lastpass may wish to read this. In summary, it's basically saying that there's a possibility that a small number of encrypted account files may have been stolen, so any of those which also have weak passwords may be in danger.

I'll stick with KeePass.

Eco_Miser · 7 May 2011 at 1:22AM

tropicaltopaz wrote: »

btw an old car reg which comes with letters and numbers - some just stick in my head for some reason would be impossible to guess, although perhaps I will get told they're too short.

Actually, old car regs are as easy to guess as words - certainly for a brute force dictionary attacker.

tropicaltopaz · 7 May 2011 at 9:37PM

Eco_Miser wrote: »

Actually, old car regs are as easy to guess as words - certainly for a brute force dictionary attacker.

I get your point, perhaps I should add something to it to make it harder to guess?

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'How to have lots of passwords without struggling to remember them' blog discussion

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