Securing   your   passwords

This is the part that cracks me up!
Here I will show you how to protect your passwords.
There is only one thing wrong with this whole page.
You will require a PASSWORD to protect your passwords.
As I mentioned earlier, "we have not found a true substitute for passwords - passwords are simply the cheapest and easiest to use." So before we start, let's classify our need for passwords.

Password Classification
If you look at your need for passwords, you should be able to sort them into four groups. And there are very good reasons why you should use a seperate password for each group. That would mean only ever requiring 4 passwords [at a time].

• Low security - These low-security systems may include all those silly web sites that make you register with a userID. To keep things simple, I would suggest you choose one password only for all these low-security systems. This password may be just letters, just numbers, or a mixture of both. However, it is important that only you can decipher the meaning of the password.



• Medium security - These medium-security systems may include your Yahoo e-mail and Instant Messenger password. Again, to keep things simple, I would suggest you choose one password only for all these medium-security systems. This password should be letters [include a random capital letter] AND numbers - a mixture of both. However, it is again important that only you can decipher the meaning of the password.



• HIGH SECURITY - These HIGH-security systems will iclude Online banking and other online financial transaction websites [eg. eBay, Paypal, etc]. If you surrender this password you could suffer some very serious finacial pain. Here I suggest a VERY STRONG password which WILL include special characters [$, ?, &] as well as numerals, upper and lowercase letters.
  
  If you are comfortable with passwords, you may like to have multiple HIGH SECURITY passwords. Using multiple passwords with a common base is not difficult. You will recall, as an example, we used
  
  My Daughter Is Seven Her Name Is Kathy
  Password : md=7HNiK
  
  Expand your thinking to include your financial links :
  
  My Daughter Is Seven Her Name Is Paypal
  Password : md=7HNiP
  
  My Daughter Is Seven Her Name Is eBay
  Password : md=7HNie
  
  My Daughter Is Seven Her Name Is Bank
  Password : md=7HNiB
  
  The more passwords you are able to remember, the safer your details are.



• CoMPleX Ma$tEr Password - Now, add to those three groups, your MASTER password. This is the IMPORTANT one. This is the one you will need to access all your other passwords [that are securely stored] and any other personal information that you really don't want others to see. It is now up to you to create this password.
  
  Use the same criteria for this password as you did for your HIGH security password.

And when you do, please don't write it down anywhere. Please don't write it down, and then stick it to the side of the top draw of your desk, or even worse, on a sticky note attached to your computer! Just as you would never leave your car at the shopping mall unlocked, with the keys in it, don't leave your password exposed to theft.

Secure Storage
Your passwords may be stored in two ways - on your hard drive or a USB flash drive. I use both methods - backing up doesn't only apply to your computer. One product - TrueCrypt - will perform both tasks for you.

TrueCrypt is a free, open source programme that has the unique quality of being both easy to use AND being extremely secure. It uses the Blowfish cryptography algorithm to protect all of your passwords with one "safe combination". It runs on all versions of Windows, and there is no spyware.

You can see screenshots here, read the FAQ here, and download the programme here.

A good password is easy to remember, but hard to guess

And you must also NEVER write down your password

And you must also NEVER write down your password

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