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List:       gnupg-users
Subject:    Re: A better way to think about passwords
From:       "Mark H. Wood" <mwood () IUPUI ! Edu>
Date:       2011-04-19 14:14:31
Message-ID: 20110419141431.GC21975 () IUPUI ! Edu
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Well, memory seems to be a highly individual thing.  Mine is not so
good in some ways, and I've had to learn to search for the kinds of
patterns that I find memorable.

Frequent use helps too: I've learned to put repeating "touching base"
notes on my calendar to make me learn passwords to things which are
infrequently accessed but urgent when I do need them.  (I don't put
the passwords in the calendar, of course!)

Incidentally, I've sometimes substituted a mechanical nonsense word
into a phrase, mostly just to satisfy some nag about "you should
switch to a passphrase".  So I wound up with things like:

  Paul McCartney fakbetyest Abbey Road Studios

I don't expect it to be much stronger than the nonsense word alone,
but perhaps it will encourage a complex cracker to waste time on
clever shortcuts before falling back to brute force.  These I find
more or less equally memorable as the word alone.

-- 
Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer   mwood@IUPUI.Edu
Asking whether markets are efficient is like asking whether people are smart.

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