The Keys to Our Digital Lives
You probably have to use passwords to access at least half a dozen systems on a regular basis. I entered a password to log into my desktop at home. Then I had to enter a password to access WordPress and enter the text of this article. I have passwords to check email, view bank account information, upload photos to flickr, manage my 401K, read RSS feeds, and on and on. When I go to work in the morning I will have to enter yet another password that I’m forced to update regularly for security purposes.
People tend to deal with this problem in one or more of the following ways:
- Use the same password for everything. One obvious problem with this method is that it’s insecure. If your primary password is compromised and someone gets it, all of your data is compromised. This also is simply impractical for systems that force you to change your password regularly.
- Use very weak passwords. Passwords that are very short in length and do not contain a combination of lowercase, uppercase, numbers, and symbols can be compromised much more easily. Check your password strength to see how yours measure up.
- Store the passwords. Writing your passwords down on post-it notes or in a file on your hard drive, or even using Firefox’s built-in password manager has obvious security implications.
- Ask for a new password. You’ve forgotten the password again so you ask the system to generate a new one for you. How annoying is that?
Jamin’s System for Remembering Passwords
There are numerous methods for remembering passwords but I’m going to give you a system I developed that will enable you to remember a secure, randomly generated password. You could use it to remember any password, but if your password is “mydogrules” you probably won’t need it.
The system is based on the QWERTY keyboard layout used in the US, but could be adapted to other keyboard layouts.
The entire system can be summarized in three parts:
- Each of the non-alpha character keys is given a keyword representing the symbol you get when you press shift + the key. To remember the symbol on the top part of the key, you just visualize the keyword. To remember the symbol or number on the bottom part of the key, you visualize that same image only “damaged” or “degraded” in some way. Example: An * could be remembered as a star and an 8 could be remembered as an exploding star or dying star.
- Each of the alpha characters is remembered by simply using a keyword that begins with the letter. If the letter is lowercase, again the image is “damaged” or “degraded” in some way. The keyword used must not be one of the existing keywords already used to remember a symbol or number. Example: The letter E could be remembered as an egg and the letter e could be remembered as a cracked egg or rotten egg.
- The images are linked together in order.
Symbol Table:
| Character | Keyword |
|---|---|
| ~ ` |
ocean (~ looks like a wave) dried up ocean |
| ! 1 |
gun (bang!) broken gun |
| @ 2 |
email from a friend spam |
| # 3 |
pound cake dog pound |
| $ 4 |
piles of cash a penny |
| % 5 |
whole pie sliver of pie |
| ^ 6 |
carrot (sounds like caret) rotten carrot |
| & 7 |
guitar amp (start of the word ampersand) broken amp |
| * 8 |
star exploding star |
| ( 9 |
sunrise moon rise |
| ) 0 |
sunset moon set |
| _ - |
rug (_ looks like a flat rug) ragged, torn rug |
| + = |
calculator abacus |
| { [ |
opening a door opening a window |
| } ] |
closing a door closing a window |
| | \ |
pipe broken or leaky pipe |
| : ; |
a colon (large intestine) diseased colon |
| “ ‘ |
shouting a quotation to a crowd whispering a quotation in someone’s ear |
| < , |
climbing up a mountain climbing up a small hill |
| > . |
falling down a mountain sliding down a small hill |
| ? / |
easy pop quiz hard final exam |
Example
47R?$exa
The 8 keywords/phrases I’ll use for these 8 characters are penny, broken amp, riff, pop-quiz, cash, rotten egg, broken xylophone, rotten apple
The numbers and symbols which are non-alpha I picked directly from the table above. For the letters, I just picked words that started with the letter that were not already keywords in the table and which were easy to visualize and link. Remember, if the letter is lowercase, you must damage or degrade the image in some way.
Let’s say this password is used to log into my PC at work. I would first start by associating my work place with the first keyword: penny. I might imagine that my paycheck is only one penny. I take the penny and go buy a broken (guitar) amp. I try to use it to play a riff. Then I give a pop-quiz on the music to a bunch of listeners. One of them pays me a pile of cash to get out of the quiz. When trying to buy me out doesn’t work, another simply throws rotten eggs at me. Dejected, I pick up a broken xylophone and try to play that but a third student hurls rotten apples at the xylophone, shattering it.
And that’s how you can remember 47R?$exa
Memory Month Introduction & Table of Contents
3 comments ↓
I am quite surprised that you are able to remember that, my password changes based on a special calculation based on the name of the website
Hrmm.. That seems so complicated and unnecessary. I find it easy enough just to memorize the string of characters. With all the work necessary to figure out how to remind yourself of your password, and committing that to memory, you could easily just memorize it, IMO.
John: It’s really not all that complicated. I’m just assigning an image that’s easy to remember for a character. And I tried to use a images that are easy to recall without really trying like @ being represented by an email.
The reason this works better than “just memorizing” is that you can remember it after one quick sitting because the method of linking sticks so much better than repeating a string of meaningless characters.
Eventually if you use the password enough you’ll have the thing “motor memorized” and won’t need these devices.
I think this might be particularly useful to people who really want randomized, strong passwords and have a need to remember many of them.
Or people with sysadmins who enforce constantly changing strong passwords. But again, I challenge you to look at the password once and remember it without repeating it over and over. Even if you can what’s the likelihood you’ll remember it tomorrow? These linked, visual images are much more easily retained.
Leave a Comment