Creating good passwords: an exercise in the fundamentals of good writing

Writing skills are essential today. One way to improve your writing is to focus on the fundamentals of basic communication: message, sender, receiver, and reducing noise. Also apply fundamental concepts of EQ, or emotional intelligence quotient, in every communication. Here are some questions to help get to the basics.

Message: Clarity of message begins with clarity of purpose. Why are you communicating? Try to be general and simple. Examples: Build trust. Listen. Understand. Offer help.

Sender & Receiver: Who is the receiver? (Visualize communicating to just one person, rather than to a group. This focus always aids in communication.) What does the receiver need to receive the message accurately and respond appropriately? What does the sender need to be able to send the message accurately?

Noise: What might disturb the process? Are you using the same language? When, where, and how are you and the receiver participating in the communication? How will you know the message is received? Do you have your recipient's full attention? EQ: For every communication there is an energy, a feeling. For example, use of clear, courteous, and polite language conveys a positive tone and reduces potential for miscommunication.

Rules: Look at the method of your communication. What are its rules? Does the communication follow the rules? Would bending or breaking the rules enhance or detract from the communication, and from your purpose?

Writing Exercise: Creating a Password

Yes, creating a password is a form of writing, and offers an exercise in applying basic communication principles. Plus it's a fun challenge! Let's do the analysis.

The message:  write a code that serves as a key to unlock or open access to an account. The purpose: both security and usability: you need to keep out all unauthorized users and allow in the authorized user. Receiver: A nonhuman machine. Receiver needs: must be exactly perfect match to the saved code. Sender needs: To be able to recall and use the precise code. Noise: would come from forgetting the code, getting the code wrong, or breaking the receiver's rules. Appropriate EQ: Knowledge and clarity. The sender must know the code and enter it with confidence. Some sites will lock you out if you "try" more than a few times. There's no autocorrect for a password! Rules for the communication: vary. Usually a combination of a minimum number of characters, upper- and lowercase letters, something capitalized, certain symbols may or may not be acceptable, etc.

Let's examine the need for security. To be hack-proof, the password must be a unique combination of letters and numbers that do not exist in a common-language database such as a dictionary. Password generators will scramble letters and numbers at random to come up with secure passwords. For maximum security, they are arguably the best solution. Here's a great article in PC Magazine on all the latest best password generators.

Interesting, but besides the point. The purpose of THIS article: explore basic communication concepts to write a secure password that is also memorable. And there may be some who enjoy the challenge and would prefer not to hand over all of our cerebral functioning to machines. :)

Problem Solving

Good writing is a form of problem solving. In problem solving, start with what's easy, to help get the ball rolling. When writing a résumé with a client, for example, start with the easiest parts: name and address and reverse chronology. Ease naturally creates flow. In writing a strong password, the need for security is the hard part. So let's start with the easy part: the need for memorability.

What's easy to remember? Queue Julie Andrews from The Sound of Music.

“Favorite things” are remembered easily because of positive emotions associated with them. Pick your favorite author, president, actor, relative, color, number, animal, flower, food, etc. Pick a word you know how to spell correctly that you will never forget. For the sake of this exercise, keep the word to between 5 and 9 letters in length. True, for a super secure password, longer is better. But for this exercise, let's stay easy: short and simple. You can make up your own different rules later if needed.

Write down your favorite 5- to 9-character word that you won't forget how to spell: _______

Next, split the word half, making sure each half is in itself unrecognizable as a word. If half is recognizable, try splitting it in a different place. (Later, if you create a rule of using a longer word and split it in thirds or fourths, make sure each segment is not a recognizable word.) For example, the last name of my favorite teacher in grade school was Ellsworth. If I split the word after the "s" the second part is "worth." That is a recognizable word. So it would be better to split the word after the w or after the o: ellsw orth or ellsw orth.

Take your word and split into two unrecognizable halves:

________  ________

Now create a capitalization rule. Could be capitalize the first, second, last, or second-to-last letter. To keep it simple, let's go with the rule of "capitalize the first letter."

Eg., Ellsw Orth

Decide on your capitalization rule and put your split word:

_________ __________

Next, between the two pieces of your word, insert a number you will remember. It could be anyone's birthday, anniversary, house number where you grew up, phone number you had as a child, etc. Most important: use a number you will easily remember. For security purposes, it is recommended to avoid common sequences and repetitions. For example, do not use 1234, 5678, 1111, 2222, 1212, 3434, 12321, etc. Also avoid using your zip code unless using your 9-digit zip code. You could do something like your zip code plus another number, such as the last four digits of something else you will easily remember. Write the number you will remember:

_________

Many sites require a symbol or punctuation mark be part of the password. Note that not all sites allow all symbols, so you might come up with a standard-ending symbol plus an alternate as a regular (memorable) backup.

Here's another place you can use an emotional component to your writing. It has nothing to do with the recipient -- the machine. But it makes the writing fun and memorable! What punctuation mark(s) best represents you? Are you an enthusiastic person? Use an exclamation point. Are you an inquisitive, curious person? Use a question mark. Are you an highly numerate analytical person? Use a hashtag or percent sign. If you're both analytical and enthusiastic, use a percent sign and an exclamation mark. You get the idea.

Your punctuation symbols(s):  _________

Now make a rule for where you're going to place these symbols this in your password: beginning, middle, or end.

Complete Example of Laurel's Secure Password-Writing System

• Favorite animal: horse
• Split the word into (2) pieces, and capitalize (first letter) each piece: Ho Rse
• Does it pass the unrecognizable rule for both segments? Yes.
• Add an easy-to-remember number between. A month and a year:
• Ho051277Rse
• Add (2) commonly acceptable punctuation symbols, in a specific position. I'll use an (ampersand) and (exclamation) mark and place them at the (end). For sites that don't allow these symbols, I'll create the alternate of an (underscore) and the number (7) or (57).
• Ho051277Rse&! (or Ho051277Rse_7 or Ho051277Rse57)

Most sites will rate the password above Very Safe. But we're not done yet. Let's go for extra security, and not use the same password everywhere. Let's use this memorable code as our base, and create an easy-to-remember rule that allows us to customize the base with unique characters associated with the URL. For example, add a suffix derived from the site address. For example, the letters just after the www. or at the end of the URL before the .com or .org. And create a capitalization rule for that as well.

• Take the last (2) letters after the www. and capitalize them. For example, a password for Amazon.com, the first two letters are "am." Capitalize, add "Am" to the end of the password. Or it could be the last two letters, On. Or you could reverse capitalize aM. Whatever rule you use, stick with it.
• Ho051277Rse&!Am or Ho051277Rse&!On

Try testing your password at the Gibson Research Corporation's Haystack Calculator. The examples above yield very strong password!

And wasn't that EASY? We didn't even have to work hard at making it secure!

To summarize: Remember Julie Andrews My Favorite Things to recall your chosen favorite word. Split the word, capitalize something in each piece, insert a memorable number, add punctuation, and finish with the (first or last) (1) or (2) digit(s) of the URL before the .com or .org extension, capitalized. 

Using the fundamentals of good writing helped create a system to write a hack-proof secure password that's also memorable. But this process can be used to improve any writing, from an email or text message to brochure copy. Understand the purpose of your communication, to create clarity for both sender and receiver. Know the needs of each the recipient and the sender. Know the rules. Follow the rules and apply them creatively. Stay emotionally positive and upbeat. Feeling confident and knowledgable are emotions. Having fun while writing -- like smiling on the phone -- comes across to your reader.

Might there be times when breaking the rules will help rather than hinder, the communication? Perhaps!

Practice applying these questions to your writing. Let me know if this makes sense and is helpful! Thanks!