How to remember internet passwords crooks will never crack
The confounded internet password is the source of so much middle-aged frustration. Just as you find a great password that’s easy to remember, the website you are using will ask you to refresh it to stay ahead of the fraudsters.
Before very long, you can end up with dozens of crazy, indecipherable passwords scribbled on pieces of paper littering your desk.
Wouldn’t life be so much sweeter if you could find a way to recall every internet password you ever need?
Secure internet passwords are one of the most complex types of information you are likely to need to memorise, but the process can be much simpler than you think — even fun!
The problem is, the trickier your password is to hack, the harder it will be to memorise.
here, I’ll explain the techniques you can use, including acronyms, codes for letters and symbols, and memorising key points on a familiar journey, to remember a password.
HOW TO DO IT INITIALLY . . .
If you are happy with the idea of good rather than exceptional security, you should be able to create easy to remember acronyms and use them as passwords. An acronym is when you take the initial letters of a phrase to make up a new word.
you might need to be a bit creative to involve numbers and symbols, but this method is simple and effective.
So one great example is to take a famous phrase. In this case, I will use ‘Is this a dagger which I see before me’, from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which gives the password ‘ITADWICB4me’. But be careful, because if you use ‘that’ instead of ‘which’ the password won’t work.
A more secure password using the same technique might incorporate symbols, too.
for example, ‘I love New york State’ could give rise to ‘I<3NySt8’, with the ‘less than’ symbol followed by a ‘3’ standing in for a heart that’s been turned on its side.
If you create a complex password like this, another way to memorise it is to encode it into something intelligible that can be symbolised, imagined and associated with already known information or in a series of links. These techniques can use letters, numbers and symbols, which I’ll set out next.
USE THE ALPHABET AS A SECRET CODE
The letters of the alphabet can be converted into images of your choice in three different ways: 1) CoMe up with 26 words that start with each letter of the alphabet in turn, for instance: apple, bear, coat, dog, egg, foot, goat, hat, ice, jet, key, lamp . . . 2) uSe a rhyme to associate every letter with an object. So ‘A’ becomes ‘hay’, ‘B’ becomes ‘bee’, ‘C’ is ‘sea’ and so on. you can also use numbers to create rhymes, so ‘2’ could be ‘shoe’ and ‘4’ could be ‘door’ . . . 3) ThINk of images to match the letters in the NATo alphabet, which is used by the military, police and almost every call centre to clarify whether you mean M for Mike or N for November. ‘A’ for ‘Alfa’ could be an Alfa Romeo car, ‘B’ for ‘Bravo’ could be a theatre audience clapping — all the way to ‘Z’ for ‘Zulu’, which could be a Zulu warrior.
Differentiate between upper or lower-case letters by modifying the images so the images for capital letters could be huge and lower-case letters tiny.
Alternatively, you could picture upper- case letters in ice or colour them differently in your mind.
Do whatever feels easiest for you, as long as there is a clear distinction.
TURN SYMBOLS INTO SIMPLE IMAGES
Be CReATIve and come up with your own object suggested by any symbol you use in your password.
for example, an exclamation mark (!) could become a road sign warning danger, or a pound sign (£) could be a pound coin, or an ampersand symbol (&) could be a hamper full of sand.
This means that when you think of the image, you’ll immediately think of the symbol and you’ll remember that it goes in your password.
PUTTING YOUR CODE TOGETHER
WheN it comes to putting this all together, take each symbol, letter and number in the password in turn, and convert them into objects using the above techniques, then place those objects at landmarks along a familiar journey.
Imagine a route you know well, such as your walk from home to the local shop, and identify key visual locations on the way, such as your garden gate, the bus stop and so on.
each character in your password will be represented by each object you find on your journey. So run through the route in your mind and imagine each object at each stage — for example, a sign at the car park could stand for an exclamation mark at the end of your password.
Say 4£fG*2&J is your password and you’re recalling it by using a journey to your corner shop. your journey should have eight steps, one for each character.
Start at the beginning of your password — here, ‘4’ rhymes with ‘door’ and you can link a door with leaving the house. Work through the journey, ending with a jay (a bird) to represent ‘J’ at the corner shop.
once you review it a few times you should easily be able to recall the password. Good luck!
AdApted by Louise Atkinson from How to train Your Memory by phil Chambers, published by Bluebird.