Sunday, September 28, 2008

Complex passwords you can remember

Creating a complex password you can remember is easier then you think.

Pick something you enjoy in the following areas, music, video, book. Make sure this is not your favorite movie, book, or video but something that you still like. Picking your favorite of any of these items will help people who know you well determine the answer to your security question.

Now that you have the item pick a line from your book, music, or video.

In this example I will pick the Disney's Cinderella Song, "BIBBIDI BOBBIDI BOO THE MAGIC SONG".
I then Google'd the lyrics and found an easy to line to remember.

"Put 'em together and what have you got Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo".

This line has lots of first letters I can use to help me remember.

The simplest way is to take the first letter or each word and string them together.

"Put 'em together and what have you got Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo" becomes 'petawhygbbb'.

This is a little to simple when we look we have no numbers, no uppercase letters, and no special characters.

I'll now take this answer and uppercase any items that will be simple to remember. I see 'petawhygbbb' has the word pet and why in it. I'll uppercase both of these words making my new password 'PetaWhygbbb'.

Finally I can take letters that remind me of numbers and convert them. IE I reminds me of 1 or S reminds me of $. Here's some more easy ones O = 0, e = 3, g = 6, x = *, and so on. You'll want to find numeric that logically make sense to you so you can quickly rebuild it based on the original sentence.

In my case e = 3 and g = 6 are easy to remember without me writing it down. So my password will become 'P3taWhy6bbb'.

Now my password seems to have no value P3taWhy6bbb, but after I have used it a couple times it will be easy for me to remember. If I forgot a certain piece my mind will automatically help me with the second two pieces as long as I remember the original line from the book or song or movie I used.

Practice with a couple lines and find something that you like, don't be afraid to change out th method of the second to pieces or try multiple sentences to see which ones are easier for you to remember.

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