[ale] passwords

[Ron Frazier]

That's pretty cool.  Lasspass is a neat option that stores all you long 
cryptic passwords in an encrypted vault and automatically feeds them to 
website login screens when needed.  Everything is protected by a master 
password.  You could use your strategy for the master password.

Ron

On 02/12/2011 11:04 AM, Drifter wrote:
>
> the recent chatter about network security has, mostly, skirted around 
> the password problem. Too many web sites that need strong security 
> restrict passwords by length, or character set, or both. So also do 
> many corporate web sites. Software exists that can generate random 
> alphanumeric passwords, but they routinely suffer the same fault: 
> being difficult to remember, users end up with notes taped to 
> monitors, voiding the security.
>
> For the past decade or so I have been recommending that computer users 
> pick out several favorite poems/songs and use them to generate passwords.
>
> For example, fans of mathematics might reach for Lewis Carroll:
>
> The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things,
>
> which would generate the short password <tthctwsttomt>, which munged 
> just a little bit becomes <TthctW5ttomT>.
>
> or perhaps,
>
> 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
> Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
>
> which would generate <tbatstDgagitw>
>
> English majors might prefer something from "The Love Song of J. Alfred 
> Prufrock":
>
> In the room the women come and go,
>
> Talking of Michelangelo.
>
> Or the opening of "A Tale of Two Cities":
>
> It was the best of times, it was the worst of times;
>
> I do not, for obvious reasons, ever suggest the song
>
> "All I want for Christmas is a hippopotamus." :)
>
> The people I advise do not understand the need for encryption, so the 
> topic of pass phrases does not usually come up. Memorable quotations 
> from obscure works are ideal, but all too often are not considered.
>
> I wish that financial institutions would lift restrictions on password 
> length and complexity, but that would, almost certainly, entail 
> reworking a poorly crafted database.
>
> Sean
>
>
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-- 

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Ron Frazier

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linuxdude AT c3energy.com

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