Recently, a friend of mine had one of their accounts (think it was Paypal) hacked, and had a lot of money stolen from the account due to a poor password. I gave him advice on making one which was a lot harder to guess without being too forgettable. I thought is expand upon it and write some advice for you guys here, because its better to be safe than sorry, right?

1. Capital Letters
Most websites require a capital letter, and it usually falls upon instinct or laziness to just caps the first letter. Don't. Best thing you can do it is to caps a random letter in your password. A trick I used a while ago was make sure my password had the letter which my username starts with, and capitalise that.
For example, if my password was motherfucker, since my username would be Charry I'd make it motherfuCker. It's not too hard to remember for you, but its harder to guess for other people.

2. Numbers
I'm just going to say it, don't use your fucking date of birth, because that can be obvious. But adding any old random sequence of numbers can be hard to remember. Try doubling it. Example being if my date of birth was 2005, I'd change it to 4010. So motherfucker would now be motherfuCker4010. A good but common one is to use something like a multiplication table, and change it every month.
Lets say I chose the 3 times table. One month it would be motherfuCker3, then motherfuCker6, motherfuCker9 and so on. Nobody can predict that you're using this, which is why it kind of works.

3. What DO I put as my password?
This is always a hard one for people to remember without it being obvious. One I used for a while was either the first name of a celebrity I liked (usually one with an uncommon name), or a character I like from something I enjoyed as a kid that always pokes out. This kind of doesn't need an example, since you probably all get the general idea.

Hopefully you guys have learned something form this. And no my password isn't motherfuCker4010, so you don't get to read my saucy PM's with other folk.

If a mod wants to move this to tutorials, go ahead. I just stuck it here hoping to get more people's attention on this.

I can vouch that Charry and I share saucy PMs. Mostly about our lesbians.

I just follow the xkcd strip I saw somewhere. Basically, think of four unrelated terms and make a story out of it. Coincidentally, that's how I memorize stuff on school, so it went naturally for me.

Like say for example, when I need to think of a password I just look around the room and type in four items that I see. Table, Picture Frame, Window, Jupiter. Jupiter isn't in my room, I just threw that in because why not. After that I just immediately have this mental image of a table, a picture frame hanging over it, then a window on the side of the picture frame, then I see Jupiter through the window. Usually I'd just write "PayPal, Table" somewhere because nobody else would really find that useful other than me.

TablePictureFrameWindowJupiter

If it needs symbols or numbers I just change one I to 1 (usually the first one), then an underscore at the end.

TableP1ctureFrameWindowJupiter_

Of course you can modify this however you want, like what you said about capitalizing the first name of the username instead of the first letters of the words, it's up to you.

Though of course none of these would matter if you don't secure your accounts. If someone's borrowing your laptop and you have your password on autofill, or if you're borrowing someone's phone and entered your details using that to access your account, things like those are really the easiest way to get hacked. So before making a strong password, I'd say vigilance should be primary.

EDIT: Found the xkcd

Here's an even easier way to create a difficult password that you can remember

1. Throw your keyboard

2. The keys that were hit will write out the secret password (MAKE SURE YOU'RE WRITING IN NOTEPAD, IF NOT, THERE'S AN EVER EASIER SOLUTION)

If you wrote it all in Notepad, then:

1a. Copy+Paste into the Sign up text box (or change password text box)

2a. Save the .txt file

If you were typing in the password box, then:

1b. Copy+Paste into Notepad

2b. Save .txt file

You did it. If this worked, then, it worked.

I make my password something nobody can predict, like MarryMeCharry2016.

Quote from Kanga-B

Here's an even easier way to create a difficult password that you can remember

1. Throw your keyboard

2. The keys that were hit will write out the secret password (MAKE SURE YOU'RE WRITING IN NOTEPAD, IF NOT, THERE'S AN EVER EASIER SOLUTION)

If you wrote it all in Notepad, then:

1a. Copy+Paste into the Sign up text box (or change password text box)

2a. Save the .txt file

If you were typing in the password box, then:

1b. Copy+Paste into Notepad

2b. Save .txt file

You did it. If this worked, then, it worked.

I can always rely on you to say something productive and important. Keep it up.

Quote from Cruel

I make my password something nobody can predict, like MarryMeCharry2016.

I guess passwords can be identical sometimes.

Quote from Cruel

I make my password something nobody can predict, like MarryMeCharry2016.

Quote from Drizzle

I guess passwords can be identical sometimes.

I'm in.

Quote from Kanga-B

Here's an even easier way to create a difficult password that you can remember

1. Throw your keyboard

2. The keys that were hit will write out the secret password (MAKE SURE YOU'RE WRITING IN NOTEPAD, IF NOT, THERE'S AN EVER EASIER SOLUTION)

If you wrote it all in Notepad, then:

1a. Copy+Paste into the Sign up text box (or change password text box)

2a. Save the .txt file

If you were typing in the password box, then:

1b. Copy+Paste into Notepad

2b. Save .txt file

You did it. If this worked, then, it worked.

The whole point of this was creating a password you can actually remember.
If you have a text file of your password you have to copy from notepad, anyone could just walk in when you've left your computer on, that's done you no good.

Quote from Mantha

I'm in.

This made my fucking day. Gota change my password now to MarryMeMantha2016

If you want an obscenely long password that doesn't take long to write, drum your fingers rhythmically somewhere on the keyboard. It can be any rhythm with your fingers spaced apart however far, and you'll get something like this: q132313231323q

I have something this long and it takes me about 2 seconds to type with practice.

If somebody really wants to get into your stuff and have the capability to find an easy password, then they'll be able to find a difficult one, it will just take them longer. Just leave your password short and sweet, even easy. The trick is to not become a target.

I've found a good way to make passwords is through things people don't know about you, or that're easy for you specifically to remember. So, guilty pleasures or song lyrics are pretty good ideas.

For example: JukeJ0ckJ3rk2Th0s3Th4t4r3ntW0rthy

From the "J" section of the Sports Alphabet. If you know the song, all you have to remember is the letter J and numbers.

don't use the same password for every account

I use pretty much the same password for everything. I hate when websites give you strict guidelines that you need to follow (have a capital letter, number, AND a special charactor, etc). Since every site has different requirements, I end up needing to guess which variation of it it is. Fuck off and let us just use what we want. If we get hacked, it's no-ones fault but our own (and the hacker obvs).

This isn't to say I don't see the value in using caps and numbers and shit in your password. I don't think everyone should just go and use their first name as the pass to their bank account.






...actually everybody please do. Also, just out of curiosity, what is all your first names?