Buying 'Secure' Passwords

Yep! I wonder how much she sells the passwords for to the hacker community? (Maybe her older sibling? Or parent? Or other friend of the family?)

I like that idea! I'd just have to remember not to spend that dollar.

With the amount programs and web sites I have that require passwords, I purchase software that is secured ???? that stores the sites and passwords that can also either generate complicated passwords or do it myself.

As far as doing having someone else do literally,.... no.

To what precision - just asking!

I did that too but I have trouble recalling after the 500th million digit

"Caveat emptor" - Anon

I just use Rixster and his SSI number

And how is the password communicated to the purchaser?

Once it is used on a W 10 machine and stored in the cloud is it still secure?

Does she keep a record of these passwords?

I'll pass on this, thanks.

Is there a market for a stupidity app?
Del

They appear to be widely available for free.

Free? Why free when one can charge, clearly?

Most emphatically; YES! There must be one because stupidity is rising exponentially on a daily basis and the common factor appears to be the constant engagement of electronic devices by the younger generations rather than reading, studying, and learning a subject.

There are obviously enough potential customers having mental age way below sixth grade. No surprise here. S.M.

Passwords are all about making them tough to guess and easy to remember. I use a method similar to this cartoon. It makes them easy to remember and tough for people or computers to guess.

https://xkcd.com/936/

Drew K

I generally alternate letters and numbers. When the password expires I convert one of the letters to a capital letter or add a character to the end:

345c6d7e8

Or I bury one word in small letters within a related word in capital letters:

JwOaHyNne

Our work PCs require a new password every 60 days, it has to have at least 1x Capital letter, 1x lower case & 1x numeral and can't be similar to a previous recent password. I'm working my way through the periodic table.

Great idea! Or you could mix the periodic table with months or names.

I sure can't see buying a password. What would we get? Something like s3G$d7mK8... I guess that would be considered a strong password, but I would most likely weaken it considerably by putting it on a post-it note and hanging it on my computer screen!

And that's the problem with 'strong' passwords that have requirements like:

• Must be 8-10 characters
• Must include at least one uppercase letter
• Must include at least one lowercase character
• Must include at least one symbol
• Cannot have a character repeated more than twice in a row

They produce passwords that are impossible for users to remember, so they HAVE to be written down, which destroys the 'strength' of a 'strong password.'

What they NEED to do is allow passwords of 'unlimited' length (256-1024 characters) and allow spaces to be in the passwords. Then your 'password' can be a 'pass phrase,' like [Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country], its easy for a human to remember, but, due to the length, extremely hard for a machine to brute force. It also helps if the user chooses a phrase they DON'T use as a 'catch phrase,' or if the user chooses to 'personalize' the phrase.

For example, don't use [swordfish] as a password, that's an obvious joke password that everyone will guess due to its overuse in media. However, if you 'personalize' it, you could come up with:

• [The password is always swordfish]
• [Swordfish, it's always swordfish]
• [Only an idiot would use swordfish as a password]
• [I forget what the new password is, I'd-a better come out there with you.]

Those are all harder to guess, even if you have a photo next to your computer of Harpo pulling a fish out oh his pants. The photo is a mnemonic for you, and a clue for a hacker, but the permutations are endless; thus, a true Strong Password.

(And no, I NEVER use 'swordfish' as a password, or 'Now is the time...' You think I'm an ijit who would blurt out his paswords in a public forum?)

An acquaintance mentioned to me that s/he will pick a word taken from something s/he sees in the room when it's time to come up with a password. I like your suggestion of embedding it a phrase or sentence and keeping the character count too long to brute-force hack. Or hack period.

Excellent ideas here, along with some excellent laughs.

Did you hear about the password the Blond choose:

MickeyMinnieDonaldDaisyGoofyPlutoSpringfield

She was told it had to have at least six characters and at least one capital.

(And dang it if she didn't make a genius level password by being so dumb)

Sometimes we get lucky !

Which comes to yet another form or level of a password protection and that is pin numbers....

again as I mentioned in a earlier post, where a PW manager helps greatly.

Oh, I have a way to remember PIN numbers easily, especially if I get to choose the numbers.

But I won't share; giving the secret away would make it much easier to hack *MY* PIN numbers.

Unbelievable, Your Pin Number is absolutely, amazingly brilliant

Yes, yes it is, but it isn't '12345.'

(At least not after I can get home and get to my luggage locks.)

I read somewhere that the most common password is password. A suggestion I've seen is to use the initials of a favourite book, film etc. Might be difficult for longer passwords though.

No thanks, I can roll my own dice or generate my own near random password if needed.

Lets move the thread in a different direction, how many passwords are actually broken through brute force attacks where long length and pure randomness would be beneficial compared to being just plain being STOLEN from online databases through site hacking (etc)?

"STOLEN" sounds like the makings of a strong p/w to me! "YUSTOLENmyPW"

That's a great suggestion. How quickly will the Google experts find us an answer?

This doesn't work everywhere but when you type in numbers hold down the shift key, you'll get !@#$%^&*() instead of 1234567890. Experiment, some systems will even allow Shift-Ctrl-Alt combinations, be careful though, others might get you into places you weren't meant to access!!

"Experiment, some systems will even allow Shift-Ctrl-Alt combinations, be careful though, others might get you into places you weren't meant to access!!"

And whose fault is it that you were able to get into that area by accident? If they didn't want that back door, they should have put a REAL lock on it, instead of just draping a shower curtain over the hole.

As Dilbert's buddy Wally would say, "It's a feature, not a flaw", and it happens more often than it is reported.

"Hail Wally"

Like Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

This is a current story in the U.K. Talk Talk is a large mobile/broadband/landline provider who have just had someone gain access to their 4 million customers data including bank account details. Today police have arrested a 15 yr old Irish schoolboy thought to be responsible for the breach. Does not matter how good your password is if the people holding your data are vulnerable.

Exactly. This sort of thing happens on a regular basis effecting many.

The best proof that it is impossible for service providers to know every vulnerability is the fact that others are following United's lead in offering huge rewards to "white hat" hackers who notify them instead of publicizing the exploit.

My password is not found anywhere in the keyboard. ;)

So, do I have to steal your face or just a finger?

Drew K

I don't think you'd want any part of that guy! It maybe contagious!!