One has to admit it is hard keeping up with passwords, I have so many online accounts that I have to write down passwords. I also have a system where I use one password and each site has a variation to that one password. This way the chances I forget it are pretty small.

Now there is a funny, creative and useful poster with the 500 worst passwords according to Mark Burnett author of Perfect Password Selection and Protection.

If you work in an office where you are responsible for managing the IT department, you should ad this poster to the list of office purchases.

For good measure email it to everyone you know who might need a reminder.

You can buy a poster from Etsy. They cost 38 dollars and only 30 has been printed of which a few are left.

18×24, printed on newsprint, navy blue ink, red ink cover and a light blue ink security pattern printed on the back, just for good measure.

Also I’m happy to say I never used any words or number from that list as a password!

John Pozadzides, Internet standards expert, CEO of web company iFusion Labs, and blogger recently published an article titled “How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords.” What he revealed is striking, to say the least.

We all know that the longer the password, the better. Combining letters and numbers is even better. Using a mixture of lowercase letters and capital letters is another way to strengthen your password. We KNOW all these things. But, did you know just how much of a difference using ONE capital letter in your password can make? Check out this table below. It shows the time an average computer will need to figure out the password for an account using certain programs (which, by the way, can be found FREE online!).

With this in mind, I wouldn’t be surprised if you start changing your passwords now. I suggest that you read the full article as it provides more specific information on how to make your passwords stronger. Passwords are your first (and oftentimes last) line of defense, and yet sometimes, they are taken for granted.

It shows weak, fair, good, strong and “unbreakable” passwords, as might be created by teenagers, douches (you work that one out), geeks, nature lovers, professionals, and “normal” people.

Who’s normal?

Interesting that ‘g01111001110011101100e’ — of which the central zeroes and one form five-digit binary groups each referring to a letter position in the alphabet, and actually form the password ‘goggle’ (not ‘google’, ha-ha) — is deemed “unbreakable”. I doubt it is, but I wonder how many geeks would choose a password along these lines? Not strong enough for my liking, but it’s way better than “rockstar” and “iloveu”.

What we don’t have on here are the expletive-laden passwords that I know for a fact many people often use.

Via

Assuming you haven’t got all your passwords stored in some kind of manager, when you do have to type in a pesky passphrase, how do you know you’ve got it right?

Chroma-Hash to the rescue. Still in an experimental stage, it’s a jQuery plugin which would allow a web site to display a series of colors for any run of characters the user types in, based on the MD5 system.

Mattt, a hacker from Pittsburgh, explains the system, including security concerns and possible improvements for future versions.

The system would only be really useful if it were implemented consistently across various sites that required passwords, but nevertheless it’s an interesting use of visualisation in order to make one aspect of data entry easier.

Now, if it could be implemented as a client-side plugin, such as a browser add-on, that would be cool.