Today I tweeted about a 32 character requirement for passwords and it sparked quite a discussion. I find it quite interesting that people are so reluctant safeguard their personal information. Seems like laziness to me.
As I pondered this, I wondered if people simply do not know of an effective method choosing and/or storing passwords. Thus, I want to share mine.
Using 1Password
Ever since I found 1Password generating and storing passwords has never been easier. It is what I use for all my passwords. As a matter of fact, I have a different password for every online login. I know what you are thinking, but do you realize how secure this makes my logins? Exactly.
1Password works with both Mac and Windows. In addition, there are mobile apps for iPhone, iPad and Android.
Creating an Effective (Memorable) Password
For those of you who simply do not want to use 1Password (although I do not know why), there is an effective method of creating an effective and memorable password. This is the method I used before 1Password came out.
Step One:
Write or choose a sentence that is important to you. For example, I could choose ‘I started salsa dancing in 2009 and although it took me some time to get used to, I fell in love with the music.’ This sentence is simple enough to remember and has meaning to me.
Step Two:
Write out the first letter of every word in the sentence. For my sentence above, I would write: ‘issdn2aaitmsttgutifilwtm’. Looks like the start of a good password already! However, let’s not stop there.
Step Three:
Let’s add some numbers, capital letters, and characters to our password. Here is our password so far: ‘issdn2aaitmsttgutifilwtm’. At this point there is no need to build on the password by adding any more characters. We simply need to exchange some of the characters with alternate characters. There is no set method of substitution here, just choose characters that you will remember.
As an example, her is a substitution: issdn2aaitmsttgutifilwtm = 1sSdn2@aItM54tGutIF1Lw7M. As you can see, I’ve simply changed some of the letters with numbers or characters and capitalized others. Although this may seem overwhelming, after a few entries typing this password will seem like a cinch!
There Trick:
Lastly, there is a trick to remembering the password. Take a step back to the sentence we created earlier. Every time you type out your password, repeat the sentence to yourself in your head. This will help you recall the characters in the password.
1Password Revisited
If the above method seems like too much work, you can always revert back to 1Password. It is effective, reliable and secure.
