4 ms·
For a password you have to easily memorize, a decent algorithm for generating strong-ish passwords has been to take an easily memorize-able saying/lyric/phrase:
by Slow_Hand 5y ago
For a password you have to easily memorize, a decent algorithm for generating strong-ish passwords has been to take an easily memorize-able saying/lyric/phrase:
Ex: "All we have to fear is fear itself"
Ex: "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."
and then reduce it to only the first letters of each word:
Ex: Awhtfifi
Ex: IwtbotIwtwot
The phrase is the memorable part, and then you simply have to encode it into a seemingly random string of letters that are unlikely to be dictionaried. Salt it with numbers and other characters and I think that makes for a halfway decent password.
Of course, I just use a password manager and all actual passwords are 20bit strings.
- xyzzy_plugh 5y agoWhy not just use the phrase without reducing?
- SV_BubbleTime 5y agoPeople get warm feelings when they think they are being clever. Also GP’s reducing does is make it harder for humans to remember and easier for machines to crack.
- Slow_Hand 5y agoEh, Don’t be so presumptuous. Me needing to feel clever has nothing to do with it. My thought process is that a hacker is likely to run a dictionary attack before resorting to a brute-force method. Therefore (all else being equal) a password consisting of nonrelated characters is safer than a string of actual words. That said, I also understand that more bits in a password makes for a stronger password, so any “reduced” phrase needs to be sufficiently long. Any flaw in my approach is more out of a naive understanding of how cryptography and hackers may actually work.
- kragen 5y agoThis is not a good way to generate a strong password. The three-random-words approach is far better. Also, 20 bits (less than 3 bytes) is very short.