Thursday, May 26, 2005

Making paper passwords more secure

Regarding putting passwords on paper, there is a way to eliminate the additional risks of writing down passwords instead of simply keeping your passwords in your head --- write down a list of passwords on paper, but when you actually create/use the password online, add an extra word to the end, like so:

Your paper sheet:
gKr5guhi
8uH5!ivL
%,Upp5na
xok$0iO4
l7#&Jq>h


The actual passwords:
gKr5guhinow
8uH5!ivLis
%,Upp5nathe
xok$0iO4time
l7#&Jq>hfor


This gives a poor man's two-factor authentication scheme, but of course is nowhere near the strength of one time passwords.

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