Password Strategy From my AOL Mail

Password Strategy From my AOL Mail

This is a reproduction over a decade ago which I sent to a friend whose password was hacked. 

I forgot my password and reactivated today.

They have Two Factor method now but not long time ago.

 

Step 1

One has to have one’s own trick for remembering blocks of three or four.

Try to associate them with pictures, names, pets etc.

Your pet fish or dog or cat would have a secret code attached.
 

Every time you feed them repeat the code (in mind) mentally in no time it get fixed as a long term permanent memory.

Step 2

Come with a phrase to include all  10 to 16 characters in one’s password.
This is the hard part but it can be done.

Step 3
Use elements that one never forgets (unless one has Dementia).

Birthday is an easy one to remember.

Use only two numbers from it, not all.

Step 4
Unfortunately this cannot be used if one is English but I will give some hints for them too.


For Sinhala U Mata Banna, or Muta Mata Gahanna Hithenawa or Even Puke Ariya are good enough relatively used rephrases one can remember in trans-literate content, which the English Search engine might have trouble in figuring out.

From that phrase one can choose four characters (even more if the phrase is carefully constructed) easily.
 

For English user, one good example is to go to Alchemy and remember few Elements from the Tables.

Elements like Argon, Neon, Nitrogen, Bromine could be used at lib.
 

Or even one can use pentagon, hexagon, octagon or any other scientific or mathematical elements.

Again one only remembers four characters.

Step 5
If one has ever used a password before which one has remembered with repeated usage, use the same in the middle or rearrange it and put it in the middle.

Which will easily give you at least six characters.

You already got 12 characters now.

Step 6
Use two capital letters easy to access from the keyboard as the leader or the end of the password or leader and end, depending one is right or left handed.

Step 7
If the web site requires you to use an alphanumeric pick an alpha numeral to satisfy them.
You got 16 in all and 14 probably is adequate.

Step 8
Do not tell your method to anybody.
Do not share your password even with your spouse.


One day you may be divorced!


That is real and if you have time read my book on “Myths, Miracles and Marriage”.
 

Usually perfectly normal people become paranoid after getting married.
 

That is my medical experience.


It is often the people who are near and dear (sometimes, so called friends) who steal your password, not a rouge who breaks in for quick takeaway and getaway.

Keep the record of the method in a secret hiding place that you only have access.
In case one day you forget.
 

The best place to HIDE it is your brain.
 

Not even a brain surgeon would not have any access.

When resetting the password

 
When you change the password, drop two and take two from your birthday.
Pick four alternative block of four from your catch phrase.
Jumble your original password or add a new one.
Follow the rest as required and one may be able to go on till eighty to ninety since you practiced your own method and is almost specific to YOUR BRAIN which a hacker may not be able to penetrate or crack.

Unless you are one of twins there are no two people alike.
 

Even in them their are subtle differences not due to genetics but the brain behaves differently, even in twins.

Foot Note
But beware your doctor with a short memory or who is cash strapped who might steal your birth day or the catch phrase that you utter to him every time you visit.
Remember doctors forget their passwords more often than their patients.
They will never tell you.
That is why they record every word you utter and then get the vital diagnosis
wrong.
 

In this computer age doctors have become robots (unlike good old days) and not real humans.
 

If they ask you do you forget your passwords
 

Straight away say NO.

The stupid guy will ask you to state the password and put it in his computer memory which is not protected from hackers.
 

Even the nurse can steal it, if she/he is inclined.

I trust my doctor does not apply to passwords when you do visit him/her, next time, round.


That includes me too.


I might do that, catch your password, certainly not to steal but because my brain is getting absent minded I might put that in my computer, easily accessed even by a little kid.
 

Do not worry, I do not practice now by choice not by design anyway.
 

You are safe with me, my dear.