- HOW TO MAKE A STAR TREK LIKE SECURE PASSWORD -

Good thing their passwords weren't like mine have to be at work:

"4 Capital P-i-c-a-r-d 7 Capital A-l-p-h-a Capital T-a-n-g-o"

At my old university, passwords could not contain any word in any of its huge database of languages, even if that word was made using substitutions like @ for a.

The trouble with systems like this is that passwords today aren't cracked by humans, but by machines. The key to a password is to make it long--the more the characters, the more time it would take to crack. But long passwords can be tricky to memorise, unless you make it something easy for you to remember. Unfortunately, most of the systems that have you set passwords run on obsolete principles, they want you to make a password that's not only shorter, but hard to remember, when long but easy to remember would be much harder to decrypt. I think some of these folks watched "War Games" once too often....

I learned a trick to creating strong passwords a few years ago.

Come up with something you are intimately familiar with, then generate the password based on the first letter of each word in a memorable phrase.

For example, if you're a huge fan of Star Trek you might come up with something like "Humans made first contact with Vulcans in 2063".

Your password would then be HmfcwVi2063.

This can work with special characters as well.

WR&DTwmi2362 - William Riker & Deanna Troi were married in 2362 (totally made up the year).

WTRwc#2 - William T. Riker was called #2.

My hubby stumbled across some useful bit of advice, particularly for cell phone security: If you use a number or letter more than once in a pin, it makes it more difficult to guess the password or unlock pin by looking at finger smudges or other visual cues.

Quote by DakonKor

My hubby stumbled across some useful bit of advice, particularly for cell phone security: If you use a number or letter more than once in a pin, it makes it more difficult to guess the password or unlock pin by looking at finger smudges or other visual cues.

The glory of working at a financial institution that has an app for smartphones to do your banking, and having time to pick the brain of one of the IT guys within the company who worked on it.

The only time a trick like that wouldn't work would be against a keylogger. My one suggestion might be for whose who are technically savvy check out a service called LastPass, it has a built in password generator (right now only geared to work with websites, but can be used beyond the intended purpose if you're tricky). For use on the PC LastPass is free, but if you want some of the more advanced features it's only $12 for a full year of access.

I wonder if anyone ever used this pass code XD

Quote by Varel

My one suggestion might be for whose who are technically savvy check out a service called LastPass, it has a built in password generator (right now only geared to work with websites, but can be used beyond the intended purpose if you're tricky). For use on the PC LastPass is free, but if you want some of the more advanced features it's only $12 for a full year of access.

I've seen that service and am very tempted, but do you think it's safe? The passwords I'm most concerned about protecting are financial institutions, etc., but putting those on some server somewhere that can be hacked seems risky.

Quote by Xcentric

I've seen that service and am very tempted, but do you think it's safe? The passwords I'm most concerned about protecting are financial institutions, etc., but putting those on some server somewhere that can be hacked seems risky.

Xcentric, the way that last pass works is that it actually encrypts your password information on your PC side (not that there is an ACTUAL program that you open and use) and then only stores the encrypted gibberish in the cloud. So if anyone were to access their servers they would only finding the encrypted gibberish that can't be deciphered. You should definitely check out their website.

The husband and I use this all the time now. He has the free version since you can use that for everything on your PC/Laptop etc... I got the paid version so I can have access on my Smartphone and use the password generator feature for work, without needing to get the IT department to agree to install this software on the entire network.

Also, if you have any other questions that I may be able to help you with shoot me a PM.

oooh cool.
thanks... will def check it out

wait, stored on my pc. what if i'm not at my pc. e.g. travelling...

Simple, download the software on your laptop and it can decode the information, you can also access the information via their website.

I think their website might explain it better than I have been.

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Wish I had read this yesterday. I logged on to STO to find that my account had been hacked. All of my gear and EC are gone from my main ships. Waiting to hear back from Cryptic to see what can be done. All I can do now is change all my passwords (including my e-mail just in case).

Arg this makes me so mad. I really hope karma comes back and bites the ones responsible.

I use Lastpass free version on my pc and have been very happy with it. I don't have a smartphone so I can't say anything about that capability but if it goes along with the free version's capabilities (which I am sure it probably does) it should work well too.

I would recommend anyone get an authenticator if one is available for the game they play to protect their accounts from being hacked. While nothing is an absolute guarantee, it's another hoop would-be hackers have to jump through and most won't even try when they discover it's required. They'll just move on to easier prey which unfortunately many people have become.

Yeah, I just downloaded lastpass. Still looking it over but I think the generated passwords will help a lot.