I recently attempted to complete a mandatory company questionnaire - over the internet, of course, because it’s so much easier that way… :rolleyes:
So these asshats want me to come up with a password before I begin. Okay, easy enough, right? WRONG! It needs to be at least TEN characters, including TWO capital letters, TWO lowercase letters, TWO numbers and TWO special characters! :dubious: Are they afraid of the bad guys from Die Harder trying to access my questionnaire results? I would pit these fuckers, but I want to make a poll out of this as well.
What are the most ridiculous password requirements you’ve encountered? Have you ever met the person who came up with the requirement for your particular situation? And did you break his head open with the blunt end of your CRT computer monitor? Because I would really, really like to see that one day…
Needless to say, I’ll be taking my chances with the company’s secret Gestapo coming to kidnap me, as I refuse to sign on to that fucking questionnaire.
Sometimes they make it so it can’t be based on a dictionary word. Probably a good practice for security reasons and whatnot, but also makes it really hard to remember, making you more likely to write it down somewhere which is a Bad Idea.
The worst I’ve ever gotten is that it needs to be eight characters, and two numbers. My “secure” password is 8 characters, 7 random letters and a number, so I just adapt it to my needs if I run into a dumb requirement.
The point I’m trying to make is that some IT types really need to get a grip on the reality that normal people are not going to be able to make a crazy unbreakable password that they can remember. Ask me to put one non-letter in it and let me get on with my life, you know what I’m sayin’?
The ones that bug me the most are the few that specify a **maximum **length, which always seems to be 6 characters. My “default” password happens to be 8 characters, which means I need to make up something unique for these sites, which means that there’s no way I’ll ever remember it six months from now when I need to use it again.
Slightly off-toopic, but I also hate sites that specify a maximum length for user names. I try to use ‘Suburban Plankton’ (though generally as one word, without the space) wherever I go, but at 16 characters, it exceeds the capabilities of more than a handful of sites.
Most of my work passwords are minimum 2 letters, at least one upper case, at least 1 number, at least 1 special character, and at least 8 characters long. I try to make it a bit easier by always having either consonants or vowels be upper case and incorporating the special characters as letters in the word: @=a, $=s - clever, huh? And for numbers, I use a variant on the date when the passwords have to be changed monthly (like at my last work) - if I know the month, I know the numbers.
And I don’t even try to memorize them all. I created a password-protected Word document where I put them all. That way, I just have to remember my computer log-on and the document password. I think I have a dozen different passwords at work.
I have a few “standard” password components that either obscure geographical spots, acronyms for obscure phrases, numbers that are easily memorable for me but not associated with anything obvious like birthday, SS #, etc. Then I can use different versions for different sites.
But with all the different requirements for passwords here and there, I’ve done like FCM in recent months and have made myself a password-protected file that I put them in. Makes life much easier.
Papa Tiger, on the other hand, has a whole bunch of passwords for work, all with crazy requirements – but he has no trouble whatsoever keeping them all straight. I want some of whatever memory juice he uses!
Minum length is 8 characters, must contain uppercase, lowercase, numeric AND special characters, and must be changed ever 90 days, and can’t be re-used within 5 changes.
I cope by using a ridiculously simple repeating pattern, like:
1A+2B=3c
2B+3C=4d
3C+4D=5e
etc
(obviously, not the real pattern. You punks can’t be trusted )
When I first signed up for online banking, the only password requirement was that it had to be at least six characters long. I felt like a password for something like that should be at least a little bit more secure. Ridiculous, but in the other direction.
Our work has 4 different passwords for our various activities, all with different rules (so that I can’t use the same password for all of them.) What a pain. I wouldn’t mind one rather complex password, but 4 seems over the top. I just write them all down now.
[spacey o-t]OMG! Yesterday I was at a 3 way stop staring at the house across the street from my car trying to figure out why the address looked so familiar! Who the heck did I know that lived at that house number anywhere? Or was it part of a phone number? An old boyfriends’ locker combo? Why was 1337 so familiar? :smack: [/so-t]
Take a verse from either a song or a poem, use the first letter of the words. For the numbers use the year your favorite movie came out, or the day of the month that you first kissed you SO, or the number of verses in the song or some number(s) you will remember. For numbers you can also substitute 3 for e, 1 or L or I and 0 for o.
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
BtJ-ms!77
In a tree by the brook there’s a songbird who sings
