Review on "Favourite passwords used online"

First of all, this post is for a review on a blog entry made here So here goes. As a summary, this post posted on Feb 18 is mainly about a short statistics of what is the most frequently used passwords online. It was stated that 16% likes to use their name as their password, 14% used numbers in order... meaning 1234 or 12345678 and another 4% uses the word "password". The other usages are like qwerty, iloveyou, and others.




To say the truth, I am very much not surprised by these choices of combination as passwords. These passwords are easy to remember, simple, easy to type, or in other words "good for the brains". One would definitely NOT forget it (forgetting it is simply.... unacceptable...), so the good thing is, you wouldn't lose access to the destination you are heading to. Sounds good doesn't it... so the reason to use these passwords are pretty much obvious. In fact, this problem does not only occur on the net, it also occurs on the ATM machine. Most people prefer to use their IC number, birthdates, or numbers on their ATM card as their pin codes. The reason to this is also the same 3 words which is "easy to remember" However, the consequences of using these passwords are at the same time disastrous. People who don't even know you can simply hack into your account and manipulate your information. And for those who use their name or IC number as passwords, the people who KNOWS you can simply hack into your account. (So yes, I'm saying look out for the people around you). There has been many cases whereby friends had stolen ATM cards and withdrew the money without much hassle at all.

Of course when such problem arrises, many people have somewhat came up with a "solution" or suggestion to curb this problem. One of the examples given in the post was "choose a password that is longer than 8 characters with one capital letter and one symbol". Other suggestions are usually "include numbers and symbol in your password", "use words that doesn't bring any meaning as your password". More methods to keep your passwords safe are explain here. All of these suggestions seem pretty much useful to avoid people from knowing what is your password. The bad side? Even you yourself cannot remember what's your own password! In order to solve this problem, most people started writing notes and keep them under their desktop, keyboard, sticking it at somewhere(like the picture on the left) and so on.



As far as my own experience, I've lost my password, I cannot remember what it was, and usually when you are trying to retrieve your password they have this "question" thing asking things like what is your favourite food/pet's name/ etc, and I can't even remember what I wrote for the question. And the conclusion is I totally lost access to that website. Solution? Start new account...

So yes, I totally agree that creating difficult passwords such as aS^hlo$54 is a super good password but that only happens if and only IF you can remember it without having to refer it from other places. Simple? Think again, I can hardly even remember which password i use for different website access, what more a wonderful password which is made up with symbols and capital letters...