How to create and recall strong passwords for all types of websites including banking, shopping and games.
Passwords. What an annoyance. For years we were told, “Don’t write your passwords down. If someone finds them, they can access all of your files.”
This was sound advice when you had one or two, maybe even four or five passwords.
When passwords became required for gaming, shopping, banking, blogging and so many other web-based activities, I wanted to upgrade my brain’s memory so I could remember which passwords had special characters and which forbid special characters.
I decided to commit my passwords to a small alphabetized book similar to an old-fashioned address book. I have since upgraded to a 300-page book with numbered pages. I created a table of contents on pages one through five leading me to broad categories including email, clothes shopping, banks, online education, tech sites, insurance sites, government sites and so on.
My brother came up with the idea of putting the last four numbers of his phone number amongst the name of the website. For example, Ama1234zon for his amazon password and Face1234book for his facebook password. Make the first letter capital to fulfill that requirement and add a question mark when needed.
My kids came up with a phrase where they switched out numbers for letters. They made sure it contained more than eight characters. It could be something like this: w310v3Hock3y. Again, they can add a question mark as needed. Our passphrase works for family needs like netflix, amazon, and wifi.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the webmasters who set the rules when you registered reminded you of the rules when you login:
- Your password has a special character
- There are no numbers in your password
- Your password has more than 7 characters
Typing these passwords is a minor nuisance on a full size keyboard. Now try it on your iphone where you have to switch between alpha and numeric keyboards. Even my little fingers find it difficult to hit the correct characters consistently.
Fortunately, web browsers now volunteer to save login information for us. This makes my laptop more valuable than my wallet. Chase Bank, Nordstroms, Macy’s, Home Depot, even my medical data are all available if you can guess the laptop’s login pin: birthday? anniversary? last four digits of my phone number? house number?
And why can’t my user name always be my email address?
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