Strong passwords are essential to data security. Passwords are easy enough to produce, but they are not as effective as they should be because human foibles lead to compromises. Humans find strong passwords hard to remember so they write them down. They find them hard to say so they send them in email to coworkers.

These problems can be overcome and it can even be fun.

Make the strong password by making it along with a mnemonic. Like this:

Which bear ate up my donut holes
Wb8^mdOs

Now we can refer to this as the “donut” password without giving much away and it is memorable.

We can also make a family of passwords:

Bears do not care for those expensive holes
B!c4t$Os

Is it useful to have two related passwords that may be called “the bear question” and “the bear answer”? Say, for the admin password and the staff password?

Assigning words to the shift characters on the number keys is the trick here, but not too tricky. “^” is top or up or above. “@” is at or each. “$” is money or cash or dollars ……
You get it.

Now we have pass words that can be remembered without using word combinations, i.e., thefudge, or word bastardizations, i.e., es$enti@l, either of which is easily cracked.

Now we also have passwords that can be named even in the presence of strangers without giving them away, you could just say, “Try the bear answer.”

You may also use these ideas to make your own private passwords.

While you are thinking about this, it is also a great way to generate “family passwords.”

Jane never cared for asparagus
jnc4asparagus or jnc4agus

Have fun!