Choosing good passwords

My schoolwork is finally going well, so today I will take a break from works and everything related to programming.

Let's talk about something we use every day: passwords.

Even I who use computers for many years, sometimes I make mistakes. One of those led to one of my hotmail account to be hacked, and that happened precisely to the account that I use less and where I was using just two simple words found in the dictionary. Fortunately all ended well, but it isn't always the case ... so I prepared some tips that sometime we don't remember.

1. Don't use the same password in every sites/machines
2. If you can, use diferent usernames/mails too
3. Avoid passwords that contains personal information (last name, birth date, etc)
4. Avoid short passwords (8 characters is the absolute minimum)
5. Change your passwords every months
6. Don't use patterns or sequential numbers (qwerty, asd, 1234, 123123)
7. Don't use repeated characters (aajj11)
8. Simply don't use any word from the dictionary without any transformation
9. Include punctuation and numbers
10. Use uppercase, lowercase and other symbols too
11. Replace letters with equivalent numbers ('I love pizza' for '1.l0v3.p1zz4')
12. Make jokes with your keyboard layout and combine with other text ('1qazZAQ!+H3110w0r1d')
13. If you have problems remembering your passwords, write them in paper and put them in any safe place (your wallet/monitor isn't safe place)
14. Use a second stage authentication (Google have one and probably your bank too)
15. And my favorite, DON'T share your password with your new “love of your life” that you just met 30 minutes ago as a proof of confidence and (put your useless reasons here).

Finally I also recommend using an online password generator:

http://www.pctools.com/guides/password/
http://strongpasswordgenerator.com/
http://www.freepasswordgenerator.com/


Now have fun securing your passwords while I have fun playing some games :P