Information Services - Passwords

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When you change your password, please keep in mind that some types of passwords are better than others. Also, remember that when you change your password you must choose one that you have never used before. To create a 'good' password, you need to use characters other than letters. Numbers, punctuation and a mix of upper and lower case letters is a good rule of thumb. Passwords are generally expected to be between 6 and 14 characters long. Remember, the more letters your password has, the harder it will be for someone to guess it. A good password could include any or all of the following:

Nonsense Words
Words that have no meaning to anyone else but you. (ex. klaphat! )
Acronyms
Take the first letter of each word in a sentence and create a password out of that. Please make sure it's not a common acronym such as NASA or SCUBA. (ex. My three stupid shovels broke. becomes: M3ssb. )
Templates and Themes
Templates and themes are an easy way to create easy to remember, but difficult to guess, passwords. Examples follow.

Create a template.
You can use a template of a combination of letters, punctuation, and digits for all passwords you create from now until the great day when passwords are no longer required. Once you create your own template, you'll never have to create another. It will be yours forever. Here's a simple example:
Ucc?DD where:
U is an upper case letter
c is a lower case letter
? is a selected punctuation mark - in this case a question mark.
D is a digit

Remember, do not use the examples you find here, choose one that is unique.

Choose a theme.
The theme changes with every password. For these examples we'll use Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Psalms 23, and Ali Baba.

Combine your template and theme.
Using the above template (Ucc?DD) and theme (Snow White), we get: Sno?07

When you later change passwords stay with your template but change themes. Let's get biblical: The Lord is my shepherd..., also known as the 23rd Psalm, becomes: Psa?23

Ali Baba and the 40 thieves becomes: Ali?40

The advantage to those who have multiple passwords is obvious: you can have multiple, complex passwords and only must remember your (unchanging) template and your (changing) theme.

Here are some more complex and better examples:
?0sNo?7W Snow White again, using the template: ?DcUc,DU

Notice this password uses eight characters, the two digits are both split up and mixed in with the letters, the second and fourth letters are uppercase, and two punctuation marks were used.

S?ea!07S Seven Seas, using the template: U?cc!DD.U
Same idea as above using different punctuation and a different organization of upper and lower case.

Important Notes:
The templates above were designed only to illustrate the concept. The purpose of combining letters, digits, and punctuation is to make cracking your password difficult by creating too many combinations for reasonably available computerized trial and error techniques. Your template should be both challenging and different from everyone else's. Make it personal. Your password should not be as straightforward as these examples.
The schemes described above are excellent for protection against general purpose password cracking programs. They are not good if you have reason to suspect someone is specifically targeting your account. In that case, you should change both your password and template for protection.

Alternate ways to keep track of your password:
We have 'discovered' a program called Password Safe that will keep track of your passwords for you. You will still have to enter them - it doesn't go that far - but if you forget one (your email password, or if you tend to lock your Word files with passwords) you can start up Password Safe and open your list of passwords with a single password and get the one you've forgotten. You can get more information and download the program from:
http://www.counterpane.com/passsafe.htm

If you have any questions, concerns or suggestions, please feel free to email the Lab Coordinator.