Pickles by Brian Crane for June 23, 2017

I remember a Dilbert TV episode where the keyword to some high-tech computer Wally used to work on was “keyword.”

Hard to forget, but if you DO forget, you will remember.

Earl and Opal are a strange mixture of hip and square. Like, they play kinky games in private, but Earl’s safeword is “safeword”.

Well at least it’s not 1-2-3-4-5, like in Spaceballs.

Passwords I’ve tried that were “already taken”: f*ckf*ckf*k (*replaces a letter here in the comments) and IHateThis1!

I still remember the story of a lost password on a mainframe computer. Turns out the password was “none”.

Well, it meets most password requirement. It’s certainly long enough, has both high and low characters, and has a special character.

No spaces?

Remembering passwords is a problem, especially if you visit a lot of sites. All my passwords are a complete jumble of letters, numbers, special characters etc, all created at random, and managed by a password manager. All I have to remember is one phrase to get into my password manager and I’m good to go on any of my sites. There are a lot of password managers out there. If anyone has a lot of passwords I strongly recommend using one.

Passwords are sooooooo STUPID!

Cyber security experts advise that you change your passwords every six months but most people don’t bother.

The other ( and I think, in some ways, more important ) codes, that should be regularly changed, are your bank and credit card PIN numbers. These are surprisingly easy to hack because people will use numbers that they can remember – ie. birthday, anniversary, or social security number. Try using a wierd date in history that you can remember, like 1492 or a four letter word turned to numbers using your phone – 3825,for example.

I manage the computer accounts for kids in an elementary school. At the start of the year I lead the 4th and 5th grade kids in setting their own passwords. Invariably a few of them forget their passwords over the next few weeks (despite writing them down, etc.) So for these kids I reset it to the word “forget”. In 10 years, nobody has forgotten that password.

How about: “I don’t need no stinkin’ password!” ?

Strength-checked Opal’s “password”. it’ll take 181,912 years, 237 days, 21 hrs. 42 min. 24 secs. to crack..

Password phrases are a very good idea.