I see it all the time: users choosing absolutely
insane passwords, thinking it will never affect them. Some good examples are listed in
passwords that suck by
Cyt.
"But.. the word
password is a good password!" they scream. "Nobody would ever think to try the word password!" **bzzzzt** wroooooong. (You think I'm kidding. I'm not. There really are some people out there that try to insist on that password.) Or the everlasting favorites, "
god" , "
master" , "
sex" , their first names, last names... the list goes on regarding absolutely insane passwords. Some people justify their
pathetic choices by stating "but who wants MY account? Its just a
dialup account." Sure, until they use your dialup for something '
not-quite-legal', and
the cops come to YOUR door, 'cause its your account. heh.
I remember working a late-shift one time and the female
tech working nights came to me with tears of laughter. She said a guy was having problems
authenticating - so she asked him what his password was, to verify. He asked to speak to a male tech. She presumed he was trying to bypass her because she was a woman, and told him he would have to talk to her, not someone else. He finally broke down and whispered his password:
pussy. hehe. She had to put him on hold she was laughing so hard at his embarassment. (so dont choose passwords you'll be embarassed about later, if you need to call
tech support. *grin*). Anyway, back to the issue: Dont choose crazy passes. Besides reading your mail, (and/or SENDING mail in your name, perhaps to the White House? heh), it'll eventually cause all kinds of headaches when your ISP calls and asks why you insist on portscanning
secure.fbi.gov over and over. Heheh. Granted, it will be resolved, but its still not worth any sort of hassle: choose a good pass.
Some people choose a pass based on some word they think nobody will guess. Just dont. Please. For your sake.. and your ISP's. heh. Let me suggest something to you before I end this, and I hope you do consider it.
Maybe, right now, your password looks like this:
Password:
fluffy (what a
Ninja. Name of family cat.) What if you used this instead:
Password:
FitnomcSisc
"Oh my God! There is NO way I could remember that second one. The first one is much easier! Fluffy is something I can remember!" .... ah, but can you remember the sentence, "Fluffy is the name of my cat. She is so cute." And therein lies my personal trick in choosing good passwords:
a) Always have some upper and lowercase.
b) NEVER use any word in the
dictionary. Instead, think of a sentence consisting of at least 8 words, and take the first letters of each word:
Fluffy
is
the
name
of
my
cat.
She
is
so
cute ; FitnomcSisc. Quite an improvement over "Fluffy", no? .. and its easy to remember. So next time you're choosing a password, take that into consideration. Make up an easy to remember (for you) sentence, and use the first letters, including capitalization. Enjoy. =)