Continuing in our theme of technology & religion, this was driven home recently. At work, we have to have passwords that are exactly 8 digits long. At my old job, it was 6. The number doesn’t matter, it’s the exactness that drives me crazy. I can come up with a password that’s more than or less than, but exactly? And hasn’t been used before? Unlikely.
At my old job, we were told to come up with a sentence that we would remember and use the first (or the last, or the second) digit to form a sentence: “I love my children, Bob and Lisa” becomes “ilmc8al” or something, which is a very secure password but easy for you to remember (that’s the trick, hard for others, easy for you). At my old job, my office mate was a Muslim who wanted to be more devout, so we decided that we need to come up with a prayer or a word that is a prayer. The Our Father could be “0fwaihhbtn”, less secure because of the double Hs, but still pretty good. When I first started here, I had not thought deeply about what my password would be (as you can see, this requires a great deal of thought on my part) so I just chose the first German word that popped into my head.
This week, my password’s time was up, so I had to come up with a good one (again, on the spot, I’m now compiling a list of good ones). And it’s great: meditation throughout the day! Everytime I log into something (which is often, since we used shared computers), I get a few moments to repeat a mantra to myself, to center, to ground, to stop & just be. For just an instant. And then I can go back to work.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Elise // Dec 15, 2007 at 11:26 pm
That’s not a bad idea for any phrase one would like to be reminded of on a daily basis. I think I’ll use this next time my IT guys tell me I must change my password!
2 Jeff // Dec 16, 2007 at 10:14 pm
I use favorite quotes from novels as passwords (using the first letter of each word). I just thought it was a good way to have a secure password, but I’ve found that I enjoy reciting my little literary tidbits everyday. It is a bit like a mantra, but I hadn’t thought of it that way.
3 John // Dec 16, 2007 at 10:21 pm
I don’t do this any more, but my passwords used to be my favorite scripture references, and were pretty secure, with letters, numbers and punctuation symbols. What’s more, because I had a complete scheme and a number of scriptures memorized, I could change my passwords all the time.
My current (secular) schema is top secret (muhahaha), but I think I have well over 30 fairly secure passwords memorized between work servers, home computers, and countless online services.
4 Rich // Dec 16, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Unfortunately I have to remember the IT-assigned passwords to the servers at work (there are 3 categories of them), and they are changed every six months (or when someone leaves the company). My favorite one was a mnemonic something along the lines of “data before sex”. :o)
5 xJane // Dec 17, 2007 at 8:02 am
John & Rich: my dad has a little password generator that looks like a beeper. Every time he needs another secure password, he just pushes a button & the letters & numbers are randomly generated. I just don’t remember things like that too well..
Jeff: I like that, a literary mantra!
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