Related story: For some weird reason, I memorized the serial key for a very popular software (I must be fifteen then). Even today, I can recite the 25-letter key without a hitch. And I have used its first ten letters as a password to one of my accounts. Guess what? The password has been used 4000+ times before [1]. It's hard to digest the fact that there are at least a thousand people in the world who did the same thing.
I've done the same, though I never used it as a password. Back around 2000 or so I was experimenting a lot with hardware configurations and I had input my Windows 98 SE key so many times during reinstalls I ended up memorizing it unintentionally. Even today, nearly 20 years later, I can recall it perfectly. It actually came in handy a couple of years ago when I built a P-III retro gaming machine out of scavenged parts; I found a Windows 98 CD at work collecting dust on a shelf, installed it, and instinctively entered the correct key without missing a character.
Word of warning, if you use an ad/content blocker like uBlock Origin then HIBP may give up on its k-anonymity mechanism and just sends your password to their server in cleartext.
Ensure you specifically permit their JS loaded from cloudflare.com, and check network traffic using a test password first.
Sorry to scare you! I didn't think you were still using it. Honestly, it was the first thing that came to mind in terms of "culturally important serial keys"
I didn't know the well-known part. Besides, I was assuming that this was only of the multiple, multiple keys. But, it's funny how popular it is, and that so many had a reason to memorize it.
In China they just use pinyin, so I was baffled as to how ji32k7au4a83 could represent 我的密码. Turns out it's the keys you press if you have Taiwanese input.
Speaking of good passwords, I wrote a passphrase generator once that I still use to this day. You can have a copy of it if you’d like. The README explains all there is to know about it but feel free to ask any questions anyone might have.
Let's consider the scale for a moment. How may people? (Billions, yes?) How many accounts? (Min: 10x those billions).
Or as I like to say when I see stupidity online or on TV: There are close to seven billion people in the world, dumb shit is bound to happen.
p.s. You're assuming that those first 10 characters are random and unique. But perhaps, not really. Maybe it's two 5 char strings of some other significance?
Using the above principles, how can we design a good password?
Tip 1: Replace characters with ones that sound the same
For example, you can replace the letter e in succeed with the number 1 {note this sounds the same in Mandarin}, so that it becomes succ11d, which is easy to remember and combines numbers and letters.
Tip 2: Replace characters with ones that look the same
For example, you can replace the o in dog with 0 and it becomes d0g. It mixes letters and numbers.
Tip 3: fill with special symbols
For example, the above password d0g is not long enough, so you can add special symbols at the end, e.g. d0g!(!(!(!(!(!(, it will be easy to remember, but hackers will need 12,340 centuries to crack it.
Tip 4: Using Chinese input method
For example, the phonetic input method of the four words "My Password" is the combination of "ji32k7au4a83". At first glance, it is a random combination, but it is meaningful.
Pretty hilarious all around, anyone checked if d0g!(!(!(!(!(!( is in the database too?
>Pretty hilarious all around, anyone checked if d0g!(!(!(!(!(!( is in the database too?
I just checked and... looks like it's not been seen by HIBP:
>Good news — no pwnage found!
>This password wasn't found in any of the Pwned Passwords loaded into Have I Been Pwned. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a good password, merely that it's not indexed on this site. If you're not already using a password manager, go and download 1Password and change all your passwords to be strong and unique.
Typing that out on a zhuyin keyboard gets you: ㄨㄛˇㄉㄜ˙ㄇㄧˋㄇㄚˇ
In Pinyin that is wo3 de mi4ma3
Or in English "my password"
reply