2torial #0499: Learn2 Choose and Use a Password (Continued) Build a mental key chain Modern life can present a maze of demands for a password, and the easy temptation is to make one keyword fit all. But the dangers of that are clear: you're maximizing your vulnerability if someone cracks your password. Why make it any easier for them? Or let's say you're sick at home one day and a co-worker needs access to a work file. You might feel better about giving them the password if it doesn't also unlock your bank balance and that encrypted folder of old love letters. If you go through random approaches for each new password, you've increased your opportunities to forget or misplace it. So the best solution is to build a "mental key chain" of passwords: a thematically-linked series that you apply to multiple uses. From time to time, you may forget which password goes to which machine, but all that means is that you'll have to try another.   To build a key chain, recognize natural linkages (while steering away, as usual, from the obvious). For example, let's return to when you were seven and your best friend lived two blocks over. If you limit your associations to you memory of that time, you can come up with links that are vivid to you but incomprehensible to others.   Your homeroom teacher's name.   The subject he or she taught.   Your grade in that subject.   The color of the shirt you wore when the class photo was taken. Into all of these you might make a habit of inserting the number 7, (or another single digit) for three reasons: to remind you of which age to recall, to identify the passwords as part of this chain, and to render them non-dictionary words. Examples of the above: John7son, read7ing, read7b, white7pic.   -end- Learn More! or All steps at once (printable version)