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Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 3:43 pm
by RobertGonzalez
feyd wrote:They're all in my head.

But you're the matrix, so you can remember all those password.
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 3:59 pm
by feyd
Everah wrote:But you're the matrix, so you can remember all those password.
Passwords, phone numbers, birthdays, social security numbers, credit card numbers.. just about anything with a sequence of (hex) digits.
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 4:01 pm
by Oren
In my head too.
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 4:04 pm
by RobertGonzalez
I can remember my SSN, my cell number and my favorite pizza toppings. That's about it.
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 4:10 pm
by matthijs
feyd wrote:They're all in my head.

If it weren't you I would have asked "yeah but how many is that then"

Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 4:12 pm
by Luke
I can remember just about anything that happened to any popular rock and roll band in the last 30-40 years, but I usually can't remember to not lose my wallet.

Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 4:30 pm
by feyd
Everah wrote:I can remember my SSN, my cell number and my favorite pizza toppings. That's about it.
It's not just my own numbers, it's any I come in contact with for more than about 30 seconds unless I try very hard not to read pay attention to it.
Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 7:19 pm
by wei
a simple method to create and use password,
1) pick a master password
2) hash ( master password + domain name)
if not a domain name, choose some other appropriate name such as application name
use the hash as the password
this is basically how the PasswordMaker extension for firefox works.
Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 1:11 am
by matthijs
Something like that sounds like a good idea.
I can also use the password-remember function in my browser, but I don't trust that. If I see how many security issues browsers have, before I know, they are all gone.
Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 7:59 pm
by alex.barylski
Man, you guys need to get out more if you remember birthdays, phone numbers, etc...
Your computer geeks and your relying on biological matter to track things a computer excels at? Hell I wouldn't even suggest a savant remembers phones numbers - 411 anyone?. Anything I can get my computer to remember, it does for me nicely. I save my brain power and memory for things which require human reasoning and/or practical thought. Although I have a tendancy to remember the weirdest numbers like PI or the number of feet in a statuate mile and C to F conversions. I think it is an indirect result of my dad pressuring me to be a pilot from the moment I left the womb...I was meant to grace the skies with my presence...yup...I still regret not being a flyboy
Anyways....
1) Use a program like KeePass - already noted.
2) Use "shocking nonsense" defined by Grady Ward:
http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~conrad/kr ... e-faq.html
Pick a readily available username, it's why I chose Hockey, after years of trying to remember what my username was, I finally discovered "Hockey" was almost always available.
Personally number #2 works great for me as I always have alot of turret type feelings and emotions ready to be unloaded onto the world, but that I hold back in fear. Instead, like an artist expresses themselve through music, as a programmer I express my demons through nonsense passwords.
Cheers

Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 12:43 am
by matthijs
OK, I'll have a second look at those programs. Although I must say I'm wary of trusting all my passwords to it. I mean, how strong is such a program if a malicious person would gain access to my computer? Throw enough processor power and a bit of time at something and anything can be broken.
Thanks for the link hockey. Is that document really from '93? That's pretty cool

Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 3:38 am
by onion2k
I remember them. And at least one (for online banking) is a 15 digit random sequence.
EDIT: Actually, this isn't true. I don't remember the sequence itself. I couldn't recall it when I tried to. I remember the pattern of keys I type in. That's weird.
Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 4:08 am
by matthijs
The document Hockey linked to gave a good idea. make up a real weird sentence and use that. Maybe what I'll do is make up a real weird but easy to remember sentence and take the first letters and numbers of each word, and use that as a password.
It's probably a lot easier to remember say 3-5 of those sentences then just the password strings. "Hockey Is 2 times more Funny 4 all red cars" would give "hi2tmf4arc", which seems like pretty good password.
And then for the (many) logins which are not important/sensitive I'll use a simple combi "mylogin/funnypass" or bugmenot.com
Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 4:33 am
by Mordred
matthijs wrote: "Hockey Is 2 times more Funny 4 all red cars" would give "hi2tmf4arc", which seems like pretty good password.
"Hockey Is 2 times more Funny 4 all red cars" is a much better passwords than
hi2tmf4arc (unless of course the service doesn't allow you so large a password)
Anyway, it's been (like all good things) suggested before:
http://www.searchlores.org/unabpwd.htm#motips (the Georg Heym poem)
matthijs wrote:And then for the (many) logins which are not important/sensitive I'll use a simple combi "mylogin/funnypass" or bugmenot.com
Btw, before there was bugmenot there were the
cypherpunks "who wrote code" (i.e. common passwords for free services were cypherpunks/cypherpunks, cypherpunks/writecode etc.).
Anyway
Bruce Schneier does it best
Edit: Also
http://geekz.co.uk/schneierfacts/fact/27
Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 8:25 am
by bdlang
I guess I'm fortunate or I don't get out much (thanks, Hockey!). I remember my DL, SSN, phone numbers of every place I've lived or worked, passwords, all my family's numbers, etc ad nauseum. On the flipside, I am terrible with remembering people's names. Good with faces, bad with matching names to them.
At any rate, I have a simple trick to remembering passwords; I use a string of what would appear to be random numbers and upper/lower letters, BUT is actually a sequence that means something to me related to that site. I use a mnenomic trick to create a pass and it's much easier to remember with relation to the specific site.