Wednesday, October 31, 2007

good passwords

there are many rules that should be typically followed when choosing passwords:

  • easy to remember (without writing down somewhere)

  • not dictionary word/words

  • resistant to social engineering

  • resistant to permutations and combinations that can be arrived at through social engineering

  • atleast 7 characters, maybe more for sensitive data

  • should not match previous pr other currently held passwords

  • contains a mix of upper- and lowercase alphabets, numbers, and symbols


the day has arrived when i need to add one more to them:

  • should be possible to be typed on a cellphone


this rule is apparently the hardest one to keep, and ends up being the deciding factor on my selecting a password. as it is, finding a password that fits the rules above is pretty hard, and a password that satisfies those rules is, almost by extension, hard to type on a phone.

as a result, most of my current passwords will probably not change till i get a new phone - i've invested too much time into getting them right for me to throw them away for any other reason.

sometimes i wonder why i go to such lengths to justify my laziness.

btw, for the bordering-on-obsessively-curious, here's a list of the sites i access atleast a few times every week from my cellphone:

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