Personal Rules For Passwords

Members when they have trouble logging in, sometimes send in their password, many of these are so predictable, family, hobby, pets etc especially if you know the person just a little.

It’s been said the “The only secure password is the one you can’t remember” not sure if that it is correct but definitely makes it a lot more difficult for hackers.

Hackers are able to recreate the encryption process by feeding in adictionary of common passwords to find matches. This process needs to be repeated millions of times, but it's entirely automated and hackers can easily test 400,000 passwords per second. Weaker passwords are soon compromised.

Make 'em a minimum of 7 characters and three syllables long.
More is better

Include capital letters, numbers and symbols whenever possible

I often take familiar words and either 'numerize' or 'phoneticize' them
(eg: eLLeeG8T*R (alligator) or k^h>p33<t3ll (capital)

If memorizing many different passwords is a problem, try using avery secure password manager program and keep the 'keyword' safely recorded somewhere OUTSIDE of your computer. Better yet, use several different password managers and/or keywords then, tomore easily recall one from the others, relate them to a specific purpose, pen name or e-mail address.

DO NOT use personal information (addresses, mothers name, maiden names, phone numbers, dates) or anything else a decryptor would easily come up with unless you use them in combination

It would take an automatic password generator about five hours to derive 1234 Main Street from scratch. It would take the same generator more than 17 years to come up with M*oneA2IthreeN4_$t

Change passwords at least once every three weeks.

I once kept a favourite novel handy. Each month I would choose a successive page and use the page number and the first letters line
of the top most paragraph(s) as my combinations (ie the letters down the left hand margin).