1,542 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

This site uses only a few technical cookies necessary for its operation. By continuing to browse, you accept their use.
To find out more...

How to choose a good password

20 K 4.1/5 (35 reviews)

Last modified on: March 29^th 2013

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

password

These days more and more websites ask you to create a user account, so that you can be identified before being allowed to access some service or other.

To create an account you need to choose a user identity. This is simple, as your email address is used in most cases (ann.other@gmail.com, for example). Then you will need a password.

Ah! The password: the access key to so many things in your life: your computer, tablet (maybe), inbox, profile on Facebook or other social media, all the websites – commercial or otherwise – where you have a user account (oh yes, cuisine-ez.com is one of them).

The problem with this password is that it needs to be difficult for a hacker to find when attacking one of your access points, but simple enough for you to remember easily.

You should be aware that one of the so-called "brute force" methods hackers use consists of using another computer to try thousands, even millions of words based on dictionaries (all the words in many different languages, all first names, all possible numbers, etc.). So obviously, you should forget any password which is a word or name, like “Jeremy” , or “11021990” . They will only take a couple of minutes to crack.

While we're on the subject, here are the top 10 worst passwords of 2012:

password

Let's look at what makes a good password:

Meaningless when read, not a recognisable word or number
Made up of lower and upper case letters along with numbers and, if possible, unusual characters (*, !, ?, etc.)
At least 5 characters long, but 8 is better
Known to you alone: a password is like a toothbrush – not for lending to others

So, how do we find this rare beast? Well, you can come up with a string of random characters, such as
1dH2$6up – very effective, but very hard to remember!

There is a much better solution: you will need to think of a phase, a fairly long one, that means something to you (the title of a film, book, poem, proverb, saying, etc.). Whatever it is, it needs to be familiar enough to come back to you quite naturally.

Let's use as an example the film "Star Wars Episode Five: The Empire Strikes Back". To create your password, use the first letter of each word, which will give you "sweftesb". This is difficult to guess and you can recite the title to yourself in your head as you type each letter.

That's really not bad at all, but we can improve it by adding in a few refinements: replace the "s" of "star" with "*" and replace the "f" of "five" with "5", which gives you "*we5tesb".

And Bob's your uncle! This system provides you with a password that is very difficult for a hacker to find, but which you can have at your fingertips in a matter of seconds.

Of course, you should never, ever, write it down anywhere afterwards, that negates the whole point…

password

If you need a reminder, just write down "empire strikes back" somewhere. That should be enough to jog your memory.

Lasts posts

Butter vs. grease

We often read in a recipe where a pastry is put into a mould that, just before pouring, the mould should be buttered or greased. But what's the difference between these 2 terms?
December 1^st 20251,2215

Getting out of the fridge early

Very often when you're cooking, you need to take food or preparations out of the fridge, to use them in the recipe in progress. There's nothing tricky about this: you just take them out of the fridge and use them, usually immediately, in the recipe. But is this really a good method?
November 24^th 20251,2125

Who's making the croissants?

When you look at a bakery from the outside, you naturally think that in the bakery, the bakers make the bread, and in the laboratory, the pastry chefs make the cakes. It's very often like that, with each of these professions having quite different ways of working, but sometimes there's also one...
November 23^th 20251,106

Oven height

When we put a dish or cake in the oven, we naturally tend to put it on the middle shelf, and that's what we usually do. But in some cases, this position and height can be a little tricky, so let's find out why.
October 8^th 20253,0185

The importance of sieving

In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?
September 3^rd 20257,7163

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

The 3 kinds of meringue

Meringue – what could be simpler? Just beaten egg whites with sugar added. This makes a fairly stiff mixture which can then be cooked in a cool oven to create those lovely, light confections. But in the world of professional patisserie, meringue comes in three different kinds. Even if the...
June 14^th 201365 K4.5

Artichoke stalks

When preparing artichokes for cooking, you may well already know that we often need to remove the first round of leaves, if they are tatty or dirty, as well as the inedible stalk. The operative word here is “remove” , rather than “cut off”.
October 25^th 201653 K4.3

Chive flowers

Did you know that? Chive flowers are not only a beautiful purple color, but they are also edible and delicious.
May 29^th 201948 K4.4

The baker always gild twice

I've already told you about gilding, the beaten whole egg that is spread with a brush on anything that needs to brown in the oven: puff pastry, pastries, etc. and that professionals use a lot, I'm going to come back to this to clarify a bit how to do it, and give you a professional tip.
June 9^th 201935 K4.2

The proper use of a dusting machine

Let's take a look at a simple gesture, the sprinkling, that is to say to distribute a fine powder (icing sugar, sugar, flour,...) on a surface. If you have to sprinkle something, you may use a sprinkler or "poudrette" (in french) it is a very simple utensil, a box, with a lid pierced with holes...
July 31^th 201912 K4.6