Subj : FidoGazette Vol 11 no 32 To : JANIS KRACHT From : JIMMY ANDERSON Date : Mon Sep 18 2017 15:18:00 -=> Janis Kracht wrote to All <=- JK> Like I said, Years Ago.... JK> By Janis Kracht, 1:261/38, janis@filegate.net JK> I found the following article regarding computer passwords and JK> their current "failings" and thought it could be of interest to JK> many here. JK> It was never a good idea to use short words or common-use words JK> for passwords, we all know that. VERY intersting! Thank you for sharing! I just sent this to all our teachers and staff (I'm IT director for a public school system) - I just saw an IT article about passwords and thought this was interesting... Some of you know what 'brute force' hacking is. That's where a program continuously enters a password attempt until it finds the right thing. Historically, normal English words are the first thing tried, and then with numbers added. In the past, it's been a good idea to replace the letter "o" with a zero and such, and this is still a great idea, but this article mentioned that hacking programs are starting to figure that out. For a while, phrases have been a good idea, as they are much harder to figure out, but also harder to type in, especially on a phone. That being said, picking a phrase that is easy for you to remember and then using just the first letters makes for something easy to type, but hard to guess. For example, your phrase might be "Katie cuts my hair. You should let her cut yours too." Your pw would then be kcmhyslhcyt If you need a number, use a 2 instead of a t at the end. If you need upper case then use K since it's a name - or K and Y since that's capitalized in the phrase. So it might be - KcmyYslhcy2 Practically IMPOSSIBLE to crack! One more thing the article suggested was to use a password manager. I personally have NOT tried one out and not sure I like the idea of my passwords being stored somewhere that could be potentially hacked, thus giving someone access to ALL my passwords... .... Blessed be the pessimist for he hath bought insurance. --- MultiMail/Darwin v0.49 * Origin: Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org (1:116/17) .