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Instead of memorizing all of my passwords, I memorized an algorithm that I use to generate passwords. So all of my passwords are unique with fairly good entropy
by grahamburger 13y ago
Instead of memorizing all of my passwords, I memorized an algorithm that I use to generate passwords. So all of my passwords are unique with fairly good entropy, and I can recover any of them, but I don't necessarily have them memorized. The ones that I use often are saved in muscle memory.
- jmcphers 13y agoI have wanted to take this approach, but it's hard to reconcile with the password requirements for service providers. Sometimes these go so far as to be mutually exclusive--for instance, some providers will not accept a password unless it has at least one non-alphanumeric character; others will not accept a password that has one. I found that it was difficult to remember what mutations I'd done to my password to make it acceptable to the service provider. How do you account for this in your algorithm?
- grahamburger 13y agoThat was a problem when I first started a few years ago, so I used a very simple algorithm that didn't have non-alphanumeric letters. About 3 years ago I came up with a better algorithm, and now I use both. The simpler one on throwaway sites, which tend to be the same sites with insecure password requirements, and the more complex one for everything else. The only problem I still occasionally run in to is when a site requires a password change for whatever reason. I have a couple of minor permutations on the algorithm that I use in those cases, but sometimes that does trip me up.