Password security

I use dictionary words for like just accounts in general, and made-up words for paypal, and then I use a "1337"speak dictionary word for my bank account.. I need to strengthen those. :\

I can remember passwords up to 30 characters fairly easy after a day or so of using them. While I type in the first 4 or 5 characters my fingers know where to move to finish the sequence so I don't have to actually try and recall every character although I can recall the password from memory if I need to. A year and a half ago 1 of my friends had me play his World of Warcraft account for a weekend with someone else we know while my friend was away. Last week he asked if by any chance I remembered his account info because he forgot both the username and password since it had been over a year since he played the game, I told him what it was, and he was surprised that I still remembered both his account name and password

Originally Posted by RaZoR^ Geesh Impluo, you little social engineer!! Yeah, you must also remember that if you have a password which can be recovered by entering your personal data and/or a secret qquestion, then you need to keep the answer secure, even unrelated, maybe enter fake data (remembering what you entered somehow) or use a different password for the email account that the new password or the recovered password will be sent to.

Yep, I keep my secret password/question completely irrelevant. There is a very slim chance I'll ever need to use it and I should remember the answer depending on the question (even though it is completely irrelevant it will make sense in my mind ).

My question is always my pet's name... but the answer isn't a name of a pet... it's another combination of numbers, upper and lowercase letters and a couple of symbols. And the answers are always different lol.

I used PasswordHasher..look it up it's a Firefox Extension, but can also be used through the web tool.

http://wijjo.com/passhash/passhash.html

It's pretty sweet.