rjoc04679

[Dale H. Cook]

At 09:36 AM 3/31/2011, Sid Schweiger wrote:

>The problem is that passwords have to be used by people, not 
>machines, and a password that bears no resemblance whatsoever to 
>anything in human experience is going to be either forgotten 
>regularly or written down and posted on the user's monitor

I have another system entirely for passwords that must be memorized, 
which yields passwords almost as strong as randomly generated ones, 
i.e., containing a mixture of upper- and lower-case letters, numerals 
and punctuation, and containing no dictionary words. For security 
reasons, however, I cannot discuss in detail the method I use to 
generate easy-to-remember passwords. I will say only that it involves 
a small number of fixed rules governing changes in characters in an 
easy-to-remember phrase. Anyone who knows the rules and the phrase 
can quickly and easily generate a password from the phrase.

Granted, that system is not something that can be remembered (or 
utilized) by the brain-dead, but I do not administer systems for the 
brain-dead.

Dale H. Cook, Contract Engineer, Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA
http://plymouthcolony.net/starcityeng/index.html