How to create a strong password for an email? (or any account) >>

.: Hi~

How to create a strong password for my email or any online account??

Mmm, you probably reading this post from my email-making ebook (Gmail and Yahoo! mail) or from my other post. And I assume that you already using a strong password, but would you like to know if your password is strong enough?

image credit to: chotda

Password = Watchword

Citing the definition from Wiki, a password is "A secret word or string of characters that is used for authentication, to prove identity or gain access to a resource (example: an access code is a type of password)." The password must be kept secret from those not allowed access, and I mean it from all of them.

So how to create a super password?

It's hard to determine a very super strong password. The success of superbness of your password can happen only when:

your password is super long which you'll need to apply for a special account because of your password contains 999 forever-changing characters or more
somehow or somewhat that site of yours have super technology or encryption that ultimately prevents your password from being cracked
the world is at peace, no hacker even mind to hack your account or hunt for your personal information
plus other out-of-this-world-maybe reasons..

Sorry to worry you, below is how you can create a strong password (or use it and modify your current password).

add extra characters inside: 8, 9, or more is recommended for a strong password.
easy to remember, hard to guess, and never directly related to you
a mixture of upper and lower case letters
plus a mixture of numbers, and the ASCII-thing (special characters and punctuation signs)
using my resemblance method (for bi-lingual IMers) and other methods

The resemblance method

I would love to share you my personal resemblance method but we should start with other strong methods. I've found 2 version that is quite handy and incorporate some of their techniques in mine.

Read the Microsoft 6 steps to build a strong password, using a simple and catchy sentence here.
Learn Scalet's method using simple and catchy sentence with a little twist-unique password for each account that you have.

The resemblance technique is basically simple sentences using bi-lingual word and meaning. This type of password is used together with the previous Microsoft's 6 steps. Take "love to eat durian so much" as our example.

We starts with l2eduriansm
then it becomes l2Eduriansm
and l2Edueendsm
l2EdueanDsm
l2Edu3anDsm
lastly, l2Edu3@nD> (a 10 letter password)

Explanation:

substitute 'to' and it becomes '2'
for the word 'eat', use capital 'E'
here we use other language pronunciation but we spelled it our way. So, this is the resemblance part mentioned before. Durian, a native fruit in Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, and we change the spelling as 'due-end'. Here the pronunciation of 'due-end' resembles 'durian'. (it sounds like 'durian' a little bit) ;-P
then add another upper case in our password, 'D'
another number substitution 'e' to '3'
and lastly incorporate the special characters. 'a' becomes '@' and 'sm' becomes '>'
then it is done - 'l2Edu3@nD>' (do not use this password, okay?) ;-)

Say, another example is "major league is next week".

majorlinxwk
mejalinxwk
mejalinxw6
mEJ4linxw6
mEJ4[in*w6 (still a 10 letter password)

Explanation:

'next' is 'nx', 'week' is 'wk'
'major' sounds like meja in Malay. (meja is actually means table). Another resemblance in pronunciation.
spell it in our own way - 'wk' (week) becomes 'w6'
use numbers and capital letters
change some letters with special characters, the letter 'L' becomes '[' and 'nx' (next) becomes 'n*'

My resemblance methods should give you a strange, not found in dictionary, but memorable and quite a strong password. (I've double check both paswords in Yahoo! mail and Gmail email sign up and the results is super strong password). ;-) Hope this blog post of mine will helps you creating a strong password, not just for your email but practically for any account.

These links is good for you~~

[http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2009/05/how-to-choose-and-remember-secure-passwords/] - another method using master password
[http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2009/09/choose-good-security-questions-and-better-answers/] - still deciding what is your best security question?
[http://windowslivehelp.com/solutions/supportmgr/archive/2009/04/08/please-enter-your-password-more-than-a-passing-decision.aspx] - creating a strong password with their 4 tips
[http://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/passwords/secret.aspx] - how to keep secret of your password

References:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password] - What is a password.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_strength] - Levels of password strength.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII] - the signs and other characters.
[http://psynch.com/docs/choosing-good-passwords.html] - Hitachi's guide of choosing a good password.
[http://www.csoonline.com/article/220721/How_to_Write_Good_Passwords] - a method by Sarah D. Scalet in CSO.
[http://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/passwords/create.aspx] - contains Microsoft's 6 strong steps to create a password.
[http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/hacking101/a/password.htm] - passwords that make dictionary go blur blur~~ X-D

IM-AIOExplained: "It happens that using the same password for my Twitter and my email teaches me the to use different super password for each and every account that I have." My Twitter account have been suspended before.. :-(

Bahasa malaysia version? >>