My password regime.

First I enter the password making several mistakes to confuse any one who is watching. Then I make a face in the camera. If I don’t make the face the laptop boots up in honeypot mode. Then I scream like a nanshee into the microphone. Then I shake the laptop in a precise way. This uses the G force indicators designed to stop the hard drive when it is bumped. This boots me into the fake desktop. The laptop will ask me who are you and how did you get this password. This is answered by squirting freon into the fan so the motherboard can detect a temperature drop. If this is not done the laptop notifies the dragon tatoo group the laptop has been compromised. They then notify the vicinity of Betelguese group to check if non humans are involved. Once the real desktop appears there are further challenges including shall we play a game or I have the utmost confidence in this mission.

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Sounds like you could do with a password manager. I’m partial to Bitwarden for cloud and KeepassXC for local, though some swear by 1Password.

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He’s telling us that he’s a hacker and has spyware on someone’s device on this forum. What watchers always forget is that someone is always watching them too.

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Yep, I like Bitwarden as well. :+1:

“Who Watches the Watchmen?” - Alan Moore :thinking:

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Huh. I just login to a user account normally, admin up processes when truly necessary, and shuffle contraband to an encrypted NAS whose key is only memory-resident (making reboots a fkn delight). I should probably set up VLAN routing on the router to firewall the IoT stuff from the computers and force the IPTV cams to be local exclusive … someday.

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Entertaining OP for morning coffee.

I’ve seen a move away from complex passwords in a few communities.

The concept is; we’ve been trained to make passwords that are good for 'puters, but hard to remember. Claim is, they can also be cracked relatively easily by brute force.

The suggestion is to use common words in a nonsense phrase. Example:
Horse staple battery check. (Ya’ already remember it, don’t you?)
Note the cap ‘H’ for caps, the spaces, plus the period (.) for special character if required
Supposedly much more difficult to crack, definitely easier to remember.
If need be, common substitutions can be made as required, such as :
3 for an e / E if a number is required.
| (pipe) for an l / L or a 1.
@ for an a / A.
( for a c / C.
etc., etc., etc.

slmjim

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makes nice random words passphrases in a way that is easier to remember (by forming a (nonsensical) sentence of sorts), e.g.:
“Irish jaguar and shoeless buffalo contribute 2222 round diapers and 211 normal softballs in Kuwait” :wink:

Hey that’s my password! Quit sharing it

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The issue with these is that people can only memorize a limited amount, so they will start sharing passwords between pages again.

A password manager doesn’t care how many PWs it has to store, so people actually use one PW per page.

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In my opinion, the best approach is to use a reliable password manager and create a unique password for each account.

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It also helps to use a different email address for every account, and avoid using single sign-on (SSO) type things whenever possible. When every site has a different email and different password, it means that when (not if, but when) sites get hacked, at least the damage is confined to a single account. The info they obtain isn’t reusable anywhere else.

And, of course, use 2FA when possible. Then even having your email+password isn’t enough to get in. Use a standard TOTP or HOTP authenticator app of some sort, on a separate device.

Plus a password vault of some sort, and “xkcd style” passphrases which are longer to type but easier to remember. I put a key on my keyboard to type random words, to make it convenient to generate absolute gibberish when necessary. For example, I pressed it a few times and these came out:

  • Erwin chirrupped turncoats snarfing separatist narcotics
  • monoliths perniciously burden Bridgetown impalas
  • notary tallying smooth white Bohemian Pharaoh wands

Stuff like this makes great passphrases.