A simple way to make this a bit harder: stty -echo; echo `read | sha1sum` LittleBitOfSalt | sha1sum | cut -c 1-40 | pbcopy; stty echo Then paste whatever ends

A simple way to make this a bit harder: stty -echo; echo `read | sha1sum` LittleBitOfSalt | sha1sum | cut -c 1-40 | pbcopy; stty echo Then paste whatever ends up in the clipboard as your password. pbcopy is MacOS X specific I think, but IIRC there was similar way to shove stuff into clipboard on linux. Else you end up with (1) password on the screen (2) immense pain typing 40 senseless hex chars :-) Both Intel's contest and the test at http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/209/zxcvbn/test/index.html http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/209/zxcvbn/test/index.htm... mentioned elsewhere in this thread seem to be relatively happy with the result.. The fully random passwords with the password manager are probably better though...