Passphrases are awesome. Easy to remember; Hard to break. This XKCD comic explains it better than I ever will.
I use 1Password to remember all my passwords — highly recommended — so I don’t really need to remember any passwords but one. But I like to have a few stuffed into my brain permanently. My Apple ID, Gmail, and, of course, 1Passwords master password. Here’s how I make pretty strong (stronger than correct horse battery staple) passphrases that are still easy to remember.
First, I find a passphrase generator. Like, this one and generate a list of passphrases. I might get something like this …
priming whiffle nitrate keepsake goneness fireman
That’s alright. But we can do better. Why not make it even more secure by turning it into a bit of dialogue?
"Keep priming the whiffle nitrate!" shouted the gory fireman!
I dropped some words, added some, and added some punctuation, making it even harder to guess but, more importantly I can remember this passphrase.
Here’s another one. I randomly generated this …
goodbye close baby cakewalk henhouse stowage
and rearranged it into …
"Goodbye," said Baby, "I cakewalked the henhouse to stowage."
Or maybe something with numbers in it.
"It's 7 staves westward," I detailed. "Past the 12 hexagons."
A little longer than correct horse battery staple but when it really counts you want something really strong.
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