Password

[TosaInu]

Maybe people like to share ideas about making passwords that are both strong and easy to remember. That can be done in this topic.

[TinCow]

Use words that you know or that are familiar to you, but make them 1337 to increase security. For instance, if ardvaark means something to you, use it but make it: @rdv44rk!

[therother]

You can also go one step further and use phrases instead of words, e.g. T0$@Ru1z7h30rg!, which has upper and lower case, numbers & symbols and makes little sense without the source phrase.

[Monk]

Take a word you like. Let's say you are a huge fan of spicy foods so we'll use Spicy as an example. You're going to make this your password, but you wonder if someone who you know, or just some bot, could hack it.

Spicy

Seems pretty easy, huh? Well by inserting numbers inbetween the letters, you increase the chance that the bot will not be able to crack the password. So let's take a look at that in action.

S0p9i8c7y6

Looks pretty good, right? No. We're not done yet. The next point we're going to do is randomize the numbers up a bit. This is so even if the bot is pretty advanced and tries something like this, he won't get it. Any number that is not a straight sequence will work as long as you haven't given it out here on the site. So let's do a random date that's important to you, no. Not your Bday, you may have shared that here! So instead we'll do Columbus Day. Something we here in the states recognize. (sometimes)

S1p0i1c3y6

We throw a 6 in there just to be tricky. What started simply as Spicy has been spiced up a bit by way of implementing an obscure holiday's date into it. 10-13 (or 13-10 for you Europeans).

And there you go. A nice and secure password that is out of the ordinary. You might say to yourself "Monk, that's dumb, I'll never remember that!" Well that's true at first, but these sorts of passwords are very easy if you figure out their rhythm of typing them. After a week of solid use (not saving your cookies so you'll remember it) you'll get the PW down easily.

[Strike For The South]

Wait why would a bot hack my password?

[Tellos Athenaios]

Why? A bot might hack your password: to take over the world your account.
Well, at any rate one of the nastier things people can do with bot accounts is post advert spam (we've seen a couple of those), check your e-mail address to hook you up for SPAM mail (am not sure if it shows up, but would be on the wishlist for quite a few bot-masters if it did), use your signature space for (links to) malicious content by which the bot-masters may hijack other peoples browsers.

Or just shut you out of the ORG unless you create a new account. Which may be tricky if the ORG has duplicate account filters based on, say, e-mail addresses?

Strong passwords as in really very strong are very long and very random. So you usually get the best by using a random password generator and use, say 20 characters. That means a bot could have to go through as much as ~10^21 rounds of guesswork. (= beyond practical with the keep-you-out-for-x-mins after 3 consecutive failed attempts) In order for it to actually work it would even have to keep a list of foolish attempts it made. A big list if your lucky. A short one if not, because it remains a matter of chance.

[Tellos Athenaios]

You can also go one step further and use phrases instead of words, e.g. T0$@Ru1z7h30rg!, which has upper and lower case, numbers & symbols and makes little sense without the source phrase.

No, that won't do: it is (too) obvious; Tosa Rules the Org. A sentence like "@!$05rAC#2@RaT#U$th7a" may work better.

[therother]

Ah, just read the announcement. I doubt you'd need anything like the kind of strength we've been talking about right now to protect your average Org user account from bots. vB has a few safety features built in such that as long as it isn't something really easy to guess, like your username, "password", "letmein" etc., or a dictionary word, you should be fine.

Found this site, which give you some indication about how strong your password is. Doesn't check dictionary words though, so isn't entirely accurate. Plenty of other password strength metrics out there though.

No, that won't do: it is (too) obvious; Tosa Rules the Org. A sentence like "@!$05rAC#2@RaT#U$th7a" may work better.

Love to hear the mnemonic for that one!

[Caius]

Maybe people like to share ideas about making passwords that are both strong and easy to remember. That can be done in this topic.

I recall that I couldn't get my password back in the old version of vBulletin, so it would be a good idea to improve it first.

And second, don't give info about yourself... and use it in your password. For example, if I live in Washington, I wouldnt use Washington as a password. I wouldn't use Cirilic characters either. But yes a combination of numbers, letters and some weird thing as !"·$$%&/()=_.:,;

That's all.-

[Spartan198]

I'm gonna go spice up my password.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
There's a Mozilla extension called Secure Password Generator, which can produce random passwords from letters, numbers and predefined special characters in adjustable frequencies and of any given number of characters.

As for meaningful words, blend them with numbers and mix upper/lower case.
.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Love to hear the mnemonic for that one!

"Also sprach Zarathustra".

[TevashSzat]

For me, I use a random number/letter generator to generate my password and then just memorize it. Even if I have no easy way to remember it, after a while, I just know it and don't have to look off a piece of paper or anything like that

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Don't have the same password for more then 1 account. If you lose your PW here for example, and it the same PW for .Org account, your e-mail and your work e-mail, you in touble.

[Mithrandir]

I just use 123mith456 for all my online activities, hasn't failed me yet.

[TevashSzat]

I just use 123mith456 for all my online activities, hasn't failed me yet.

***writes down on piece of paper***

[TosaInu]

I recall that I couldn't get my password back in the old version of vBulletin, so it would be a good idea to improve it first.

Hello Caius,

You mean a password reset? That can go wrong indeed and there are some chains that can break. The script can fail, the e-mail details may be wrong, the mailserver can have a hiccup, mail is blocked or bumped.

It will be good to make that secret question/secret answer in your UserCP first. Then verify whether your e-mail account is still up to date. If it isn't you could send me a PM and ask me to update it first while you can still login. Of course, you can also do that yourself, but please after you did the first step, because there is a chance that it will lock you out.

When you lose access to your account, you can contact me (through a temp account, e-mail, a friend asking for you). Of course I like to be sure I reset the account for the right owner only. The secret password/answer is one of those lifelines. So put some thought in those too.

[Don Corleone]

Something I'd like to suggest in addition to what others have added:

Pick an event you can easily remember. This will provide a word and a number.

For example, graduating from college. Pick the letters of your alma mater and the graduation date. It's not important that it be completely unknown, just that a- it's not easily known and b- you won't forget it.

Next, interweave the two data sets, the letters and the numbers.

Next, in a pattern meaningful to you, come up with a system of capitalization you will remember.

Finally, select your favorite dingbat and insert it somewhere into the string.

Example (note: I do not use my graduation event as a seed, I use another qualifying event).

So, I graduated from UCONN in June of 1996. I'll take U-C-O-N-N and 0-6-9-6.

I'll interleave them to make U0C6O9N6N.

Next, I need to pick a capitalization scheme. I'll make u lower and all the rest upper.

u0C6O9N6N.

next, insert my favorite dingbat * (not actually my favorite dingbat) into the 3rd position

u0*C6O9N6N and voila.

Works for anniverseries, birth of chidren, prom date, you name it.

[Caius]

Hello Caius,

You mean a password reset? That can go wrong indeed and there are some chains that can break. The script can fail, the e-mail details may be wrong, the mailserver can have a hiccup, mail is blocked or bumped.

It will be good to make that secret question/secret answer in your UserCP first. Then verify whether your e-mail account is still up to date. If it isn't you could send me a PM and ask me to update it first while you can still login. Of course, you can also do that yourself, but please after you did the first step, because there is a chance that it will lock you out.

When you lose access to your account, you can contact me (through a temp account, e-mail, a friend asking for you). Of course I like to be sure I reset the account for the right owner only. The secret password/answer is one of those lifelines. So put some thought in those too.

I know, but I had (when there was any Secret answer thing) my password lost and the system kept giving me the same old mail without a solution to my rpblem.

[seireikhaan]

My advice? Never use "password".

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[TosaInu]

I know, but I had (when there was any Secret answer thing) my password lost and the system kept giving me the same old mail without a solution to my rpblem.

Hello Caius,

Which same old e-mail Caius? You mean you received an e-mail, but it didn't allow to reset while it claimed it did?

[Caius]

Hello Caius,

Which same old e-mail Caius? You mean you received an e-mail, but it didn't allow to reset while it claimed it did?

I received a e-mail, it didn't allow to reset even though I clicked the link.

[TosaInu]

Hello Caius,

Didn't it mention trying copying and pasting of the URL in case clicking failed?

[Drisos]

My password was ridiculously simple... Added something today. After each character, the character of the key below that one. So, after Q would come A, after W would come S, etc. (qwerty-keyboard,that is)

[Sasaki Kojiro]

My password was ridiculously simple... Added something today. After each character, the character of the key below that one. So, after Q would come A, after W would come S, etc. (qwerty-keyboard,that is)

So now your password is DcRfIkSxOlSx?

[pevergreen]

No, its cfkxlx

[Drisos]

It was more like

Sxazsxazk,ik_{Rfujl.edsx

:P

[Thermal]

bah, good job i stay logged in as org decided my password after losing it, my usual password is just a number sequence now though, a like 12 character long one, but i no it off by heart