Password Memorisation

[gothwalk]

The number of passwords I have to keep in my head for work is getting huge - at present around 25. The latest occurrence has a very very random username AND password. Anyone got any handy tricks for remembering these damn things that doesn't involve writing them down?

Comments

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Yeah - a lot of mine are generated by other people or automated processes, though. Browser memory is taking care of a lot of them, but I fear the event in which the hard disk goes bang.

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

If you're able to change your passwords to things you can more easily remember, what I do is pick words I'd easily remember and replace a selection of letters by numbers that look like those letters. I'm sure you know that trick.

I also tend to try to keep the same password for most things.

[cliph.livejournal.com]

We use Password Safe.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Excellent. Downloaded and installed - the business. Cheers!

[harmfulguy.livejournal.com]

When my first Palm PDA died, the main reason I replaced it (with the cheapest Palm on the market, mind you) was a program called SplashID (http://www.splashdata.com/splashid/). Not only does it keep an encrypted, password-protected cache of passwords, it syncs to my PCs (both at work and at home) so that it's backed up in case something happens to the PDS.

[microgirl.livejournal.com]

I just use the same 4 passwords for everything. I know that any given password has to be one of the four :) That said, that doesn't help for those times when a password is assigned to you and you don't have the ability to change it to something you remember. I've only had two of those and luckily both were easy to remember. On even made it onto my list of 4 regulars :)

This isn't helpful, is it? :D

[etherealfionna.livejournal.com]

I stick them in a view-private file in the change control system, fwiw.

I hate that randomising of usernames and passwords - it's a simple principle that the more random a password is, and the more often you have to change it, the less likely you are to be able to remember it. Ergo, you write it down on a sticky and put it on your monitor, and everything is far less secure.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

Nah. I write 'em down. Bad user! No cookie!

[bastun-ie.livejournal.com]

Yep, I hate the assigned, unchangeable password. Like in DAoC, for example :-P

Another unhelpful reply...

[bastun-ie.livejournal.com]

To make it slightly helpful... to avoid dictionary attacks, a non-common language is useful. Like Irish.

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Many of my first battery of passwords were (number)gaelic-word-associated-to-account(number). Have since graduated to a new system described in a seperate respone.

[juanfandango.livejournal.com]

Pick a memorable song and take the first letter (or last letter, or second letter, or whatever, of the first line (or second line, etc).

kotsbsbsb

("Klingons on the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow...")

P.S. Is it stuck in your head yet? :-)

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

All I can say is, mnemonic devices. Nowadays, when I need to create a pw, I generate it based on a phrase of the moment, eg "This one account is not worth making a Real Password" becomes T1ainwmaRP, which is, while not invulnerable, a helluvalot more secure than "rosebud". Likewise, if you've got something you just can't alter, develop a phrase for it that'll stick out in your head. Fortunately, most of my pregenerated passwords have been 6-place alphanumerics, and those stick in my head fine as long as I only have a few to deal with.