Weak Passwords

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You can read this rather detailed Lifehacker article on Weak Passwords by John Pozadzides or you can simply follow these rules.

  1. Change all your passwords to be a minimum of eight characters long
  2. The password must be a mix of lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers and special characters (e.g. !#@$%^&*)
  3. Do not use similar passwords for all your accounts. If one is compromised it's more likely that all of them will be

Combinatorics can be surprising. Going from seven characters to eight characters using rule 2 increases the possible time to crack your password from two years to two centuries.