Passwords And Suchforth
 

Well Oddguy's thread has got me thinking about passwords. How do people choose their passwords and what do they do to remember them?

I have a rule that the Windows password on my computer is always a song lyric, usually one that has been stuck in my head. I change the password as a form of exorcism. Plus it means that if I ever forget it, I just need to hum a few lines of the song and I will get it.

Some past examples are:
hitmebaby
anotherday (from die another day)
parkinglot (they paved paradise to put up a...)

My email account tends to be sourced from a list of googlewhacks I've found over the years. I can't remember all that many but my previous one was terrap1n - from the googlewhack "mainsails terrapin" (although it doesn't count as a googlewhack any more).

My university password tends to be whatever random thought popped in my head when I was due to change it. They include "linuxsux" (one of my geek friends was getting on my nerves at the time and "fartssmell" (they certainly do).

Well, most of the time I just pick something random with no numbers at all. I remember them by just that, remembering hem. Hard to explain really.

I use a variation on my password for all my shitz.

The variations are only for the occasional that limit passwords to 12 characters (mine's 13) or require a number.

I use the same exact password for everything, so if someone get it, it would suck quite hard. The only person who knows it is Luke, and I also know his. Sometimes it's quite tempting to abuse his powers. :p

I used to use different passwords, but after many experiences of forgetting them, I decided just using one is a good idea.

Mine is the same for everything, save for a few which I set before I decided to have one for everything.
I'd say my password is more or less 100% crack proof :). It's more or less a word I made up, so the chances of anyone getting it are slim to none :).

goodlewhackles?

Same with me Ambi. I just use it so I never forget it. I have to use "********" almost every day. I just have to think of my fav. thing and thats my password. Its quite useful if i'm having a forgetful day.

A pair of words that exist together on only one webpage in the entire internet. So think of a pair of words, type them into google and if only one page comes up in the results then you have a
googlewhack.

I hate it when systems have rules about how your password is set up. In my old job you had to have at least one number, which explains the terrap1n from before.

In one of the systems at my current university you must have three of the four types of characters:

1. Lower case characters
2. Upper case characters
3. Numbers
4. Symbols

Plus, you cannot have more than two characters of one type in a row. Which a) makes it impossible to use any of my standard passwords and b) causes an utter mishmash that is impossible to remember.

I used to use the exact same password for everything. So they're the same for every account (forums, school network). It's pretty sad actually. But now when I make new accounts I only use numbers