Marguerite
Active Member
Oh Janet, I agree. They drive me crazy, I have to reach for the scratch paper and work something out. And then, of course, I have to hve it written down so I can remember how I did it.
Not very secure!
I read an Asimov story once, a Black Widowers story, about cracking a 14 digit password. The password was random letters, the person considered his password uncrackable but also insisted that it had been cracked.
It turned out he had used a particular sonnet that people knew would be important to him because of his past work experience, and sonnets have 14 lines - the password had been the first letter of each line.
Again, what can seem random isn't always. In fact, rarely is random. We always use something that helps us remember it. Even phrases that we have to learn for school, we use a mnemnonic to help us. The lines of the treble staves in music are EGBDF and we can remember this by remembering "Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit".
For more info on this, read "The Code Book" (can't remember the author, but it really is brilliant, if a bit outdated these days). Also Jeffery Deaver's "The Blue Nowhere" which also is outdated, but will terrify you deliciously into being a lot more careful about your online security!
Marg
Not very secure!
I read an Asimov story once, a Black Widowers story, about cracking a 14 digit password. The password was random letters, the person considered his password uncrackable but also insisted that it had been cracked.
It turned out he had used a particular sonnet that people knew would be important to him because of his past work experience, and sonnets have 14 lines - the password had been the first letter of each line.
Again, what can seem random isn't always. In fact, rarely is random. We always use something that helps us remember it. Even phrases that we have to learn for school, we use a mnemnonic to help us. The lines of the treble staves in music are EGBDF and we can remember this by remembering "Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit".
For more info on this, read "The Code Book" (can't remember the author, but it really is brilliant, if a bit outdated these days). Also Jeffery Deaver's "The Blue Nowhere" which also is outdated, but will terrify you deliciously into being a lot more careful about your online security!
Marg
