The Anonymous Widower

Unbreakable Passwords

Passwords are one of the things that the Internet and computer systems often get wrong.

How many times, does your chosen password, which is of a type that has been acceptable on Site A, been unacceptable on Site B?

There are two things, I really hate.

The first is sites that generate your initial password as a string of characters, which need to be cut and pasted into the logon.  I’ve even found sites, that don’t let you change the password.  Is there a better way to piss off your clients? There are several shopping sites, I’ve used in the past that think they are being clever and secure.  In fact, they’re being stupid and I’ve never used their sites a second time.

The other is passwords that insist you use the shift key for at least one character.  As I have trouble with shift and generally span my right hand to type upper case characters, which is not a reliable process, any site that insists on that type of password is out.  So I never use a credit card with Verified by Visa on-line. This would be helped if all sites were like Zopa and allowed you to show the password, as you type it in.

So could we come up with better passwords, we’d always remember, that are totally unbreakable?

Here’s a few ideas!

My first car was a 1946 Austin 8.  I still remember the registration, which was three letters followed by three numbers.  Not long enough for some sites and rightly so, but this would be totally unbreakable, as how many criminals, would know the registration of the first car you owned. If you were someone like me, getting towards the last few decades of your life, it could be a good password. You could even have the simple password hint of “First Car” If I wanted a secure password, who could break it, if I used the registration number of the first Porsche I owned! I doubt that even my son, would know that registration.

And then there are memorable phone numbers and addresses from childhood.  I doubt, there are few people, who don’t know these from where they grew up.  Certainly, I was told to memorise them, so that if I got lost, I could find my way home.

I can also remember the address and phone number of my father’s print works as 38-44 Station Road and Bowes Park 2165.

The great things about passwords like these, is that you can write them down or put them in something like Outlook as say First Car or First Married Address and nobody will know them, except perhaps your partner or child.

There is a password strength checker here on Microsoft’s web site. It rated bowespark2165 as a strong password. It’s also easy to type.

In my view passwords must be easily memorable, as suppose you want access to say your credit card account in an emergency and you have to do it by using the memorable data, you don’t want it to be something you can’t recall.

March 16, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | Computing | Internet, Security