5 ms·

I am not sure it is. If you have a strong enough password of 8+ characters of mixed numbers, letters and symbols, why not sure if forever? I understand that u

I am not sure it is. If you have a strong enough password of 8+ characters of mixed numbers, letters and symbols, why not sure if forever? I understand that using the same password for every website is not the best practice, but his suggestion quoted above is a great alternative for people that are using their first name and birthday for passwords.

axod 17y ago
>> " I understand that using the same password for every website is not the best practice" It's ridiculously bad practice. Using lots of weak different passwords is probably better than using one strong password for everything.
- pavel_lishin 17y ago
  Exactly. Remember, that password is only strong until someone pulls it out of a database that has it stored in plain text. After that, you might as well be using "password".
maukdaddy 17y ago
Until one crappy website gets hacked and your "perfect" password is out there. NEVER use the same password for every site.
- lanaer 17y ago
  Which is why I have that one really strong password guarding my keychain, which holds randomly-generated passwords for sites.
  - NathanKP 17y ago
    That is probably the very best security. With a keychain you can have passwords that are sixteen or even thirty-two characters long and you never have to remember them, just the one password that you use to access the keychain. Ultimate security, and if one site gets hacked you don't have to worry.
pmichaud 17y ago
I have different levels of passwords: 1) Doesn't matter, it's fairly weak and I use it for spammy stuff. 2) It matters, I use it for accounts I care about, but nothing that would ruin my life. It's strong, but it's used in a couple places. 3) Banks, etc -- these all get can't-crack-it-in-1000-years passwords that are all different. I have them written down long hand, but I think the chance of an arbitrary burglar making it through my dog, alarm system, up stairs to my office, then ignoring my 5 monitors and 3 nice computers in favor of a nondescript stack of papers on a book shelf, then getting away with said papers, and using them to break into my bank accounts seems kind of far fetched. Call me crazy.
- cookiecaper 17y ago
  Also, if your house burns down, you're screwed or something. You should keep them in an encrypted file that you also uploaded to your web server or email or something. And you should probably memorize a couple master passwords -- long, strong passwords for your secret key and your email.
  - pmichaud 17y ago
    Luckily one of my talents that happens to not be useless (unlike most of them...) is memorizing long strings of arbitrary digits. I could still get into most of my accounts. In any case, there's password recovery.

axod 17y ago

>> " I understand that using the same password for every website is not the best practice" It's ridiculously bad practice. Using lots of weak different passwords is probably better than using one strong password for everything.

pavel_lishin 17y ago
Exactly. Remember, that password is only strong until someone pulls it out of a database that has it stored in plain text. After that, you might as well be using "password".

maukdaddy 17y ago

Until one crappy website gets hacked and your "perfect" password is out there. NEVER use the same password for every site.

lanaer 17y ago
Which is why I have that one really strong password guarding my keychain, which holds randomly-generated passwords for sites.
- NathanKP 17y ago
  That is probably the very best security. With a keychain you can have passwords that are sixteen or even thirty-two characters long and you never have to remember them, just the one password that you use to access the keychain. Ultimate security, and if one site gets hacked you don't have to worry.

pmichaud 17y ago

I have different levels of passwords: 1) Doesn't matter, it's fairly weak and I use it for spammy stuff. 2) It matters, I use it for accounts I care about, but nothing that would ruin my life. It's strong, but it's used in a couple places. 3) Banks, etc -- these all get can't-crack-it-in-1000-years passwords that are all different. I have them written down long hand, but I think the chance of an arbitrary burglar making it through my dog, alarm system, up stairs to my office, then ignoring my 5 monitors and 3 nice computers in favor of a nondescript stack of papers on a book shelf, then getting away with said papers, and using them to break into my bank accounts seems kind of far fetched. Call me crazy.

cookiecaper 17y ago
Also, if your house burns down, you're screwed or something. You should keep them in an encrypted file that you also uploaded to your web server or email or something. And you should probably memorize a couple master passwords -- long, strong passwords for your secret key and your email.
- pmichaud 17y ago
  Luckily one of my talents that happens to not be useless (unlike most of them...) is memorizing long strings of arbitrary digits. I could still get into most of my accounts. In any case, there's password recovery.