So Many Passwords To Remember

There are so many passwords that one has to remember these days.   There is a password for your online banking, your tax returns, your PC at work, your PC at home, your Gmail/Yahoo account, your online retailer (Amazon or Pick n Pay)…the list goes on an on…

A secure password is one that is at least 8 characters long, contains UPPERCASE, lowercase, numbers and if possible a special character like a ! or # etc.

At work often the users complain that they have to remember so many passwords, that they just end up using one password for everything as it is easier to remember.  This is very dangerous as obviously if it gets into the wrong hands then the person has access to everything of yours online…

In my usual surfing and looking for things that may help me day to day, I stumbled across a website called PasswordCard.org.  Using this site you can create your own custom password card, to keep on you to refer to whenever needed. To quote the site:

A PasswordCard is a credit card-sized card you keep in your wallet, which lets you pick very secure passwords for all your websites, without having to remember them! You just keep them with you, and even if your wallet does get stolen, the thief will still not know your actual passwords.

How does it work?

Your PasswordCard has a unique grid of random letters and digits on it. The rows have different colors, and the columns different symbols. All you do is remember a combination of a symbol and a color, and then read the letters and digits from there. It couldn’t be simpler!

You can optionally include an area that has only digits which you can use for PIN’s, and you can also choose to include symbols if you use sites which require your passwords to include them. Remember that you can still use the digits-only area for regular passwords, for any site which allows numbers in its passwords!

But I thought we weren’t supposed to write down our passwords?

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. It’s far safer to pick secure passwords and write them down, than it is to remember simple and easy to guess passwords. You already protect your wallet very well, and even if it does get stolen the thief will still not know which of the many thousands of possibilities on the card is your password.

The first thing that you want to do is generate a PasswordCard using your own 15 character PIN.  The PIN must consist of 15 numbers and/or letters from “a” – “f”. So for example if I generate a PasswordCard with the PIN of  “a1b2c3d4e5f67890(please don’t use this when you generate your own PIN) this is what it will look like:

As you can see if anyone gets this PasswordCard they will not be able to know what to use which password where…

OK so how does one use this then?

Easy!   First pick a symbol at the top of the card and use that for a specific role.  Then use the letters and numbers either going from top to bottom or bottom to top as the password.

So for example say I wanted to use the symbol “!” for my email password. The password will either be “yKxn0455” or “5540nxKy” or of you skip a line “yx05Kn45”. How cool is that!

An option I selected when generating the PasswordCard is “Check this for an area with digits only”. By doing this you can see that there is an area from row 5-8 that one can use for ATM or other PINs that require a 4 digit number.  So using the same example above, where “!” is used for say an ATM PIN it could be “0455” or “5540” or “5450” or “0545”.

As you can see, at the bottom of the card there is your 15 character PIN that you used to generate the PasswordCard, so if you ever need to reprint it you can!

But wait there is more!

If you have an Android or iPhone you can now have a digital copy of your PasswordCard on your phone to reference to whenever you need to!

So think about it. Isn’t it time to become more secure and start using stronger passwords for your online life…  head over to http://www.passwordcard.org/en or  http://www.passwordcard.org/en/mobile (for the mobile site) and get more secure today!

MadMike posted at 2011-1-10 Category: Tips

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