The Password You Can Use Without Knowing It

has its potential as well as drawbacks....

such as an injury to the part of the brain that stores this pattern.

No doubt there are people who would try to use ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234 because they'd worry about forgetting it.

Sorry for the xkcd.com spam, but this is pretty relevant:

For all the planning we do sometimes we can sure paint ourselves into a corner...

xkcd is never spam

The XKCD password solution is actually quite good. It amazes me sometimes what people think are good passwords. What I find is that good practice and procedures work better than passwords that are complicated for people.

I've also run into many situations where a 3 letter password was used on a supposedly restricted file. A better password COULD have been used, but so many people had to have access that they just simplified the password!

I prefer to use good procedures and protocols rather than rely on most people to use secure logins. People want convenience, and convenience is directly proportional to risk. A little inconvenience in protocol and procedure can go a lot further than a single strong password.

Any time "security" significantly stunts "productivity" (in quotes, because so many of us have our own definitions for both terms), users will find (sometimes creative, and almost always dangerous) ways around the security, in order to achieve productivity. The trick is to find the most secure method possible while keeping he difficulty-of-use factor under control.

Too often (and I've been guilty of this myself) we fail to think far enough out of the box to make this work. Unfortunately it seems this is most often due to intellectual laziness. And users who aren't as intellectually lazy as I tend to be deserve better.

The best security and password system in the world can easily be undone by a simple sticky note in the right place.

Our work computer is supposed to be secure but every password and the site, file or other related program to it we use all have their sticky note on the monitor.

Numbered, labeled, and arrowed of course so there is no confusion as to what goes where and yes I have tried them all from home on my unsecured computer and I can access everything from there as well.

I believe your touching off of Password management techniques.

I recently using 1Password app on my iPad, from agilebits

https://agilebits.com/

I have been thinking of this for a while and I should have started this a long time ago.

As long as no one breaks into my 1Password account...........

Just don't leave a sticky note with all your info on it on your monitor where I can find it and you will be fine.

got it...............