Posted on 03/27/2015 9:21:39 AM PDT by Utilizer
Its getting easier to secure your digital privacy. iPhones now encrypt a great deal of personal information; hard drives on Mac and Windows 8.1 computers are now automatically locked down; even Facebook, which made a fortune on open sharing, is providing end-to-end encryption in the chat tool WhatsApp. But none of this technology offers as much protection as you may think if you dont know how to come up with a good passphrase.
A passphrase is like a password, but longer and more secure. In essence, its an encryption key that you memorize. Once you start caring more deeply about your privacy and improving your computer security habits, one of the first roadblocks youll run into is having to create a passphrase. You cant secure much without one.
For example, when you encrypt your hard drive, a USB stick, or a document on your computer, the disk encryption is often only as strong as your passphrase. If you use a password database, or the password-saving feature in your web browser, youll want to set a strong master passphrase to protect them. If you want to encrypt your email with PGP, you protect your private key with a passphrase. In his first email to Laura Poitras, Edward Snowden wrote, Please confirm that no one has ever had a copy of your private key and that it uses a strong passphrase. Assume your adversary is capable of one trillion guesses per second.
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ThisIsAVerySecurePasswordPhrase
T#isI$Not
M4L Password
Yoda speak you should use when pass phrase generating you are. :-)
The NSA doesn’t hack your passwords. The NSA calculates the hash key that’s generated by your password.
So “I Like Ice Cream” is not stored on your computer but the hash key of 7b783177134c3bfe95647ca3e12ddeb4 is stored on your computer and it can be calculated.
Like having one’s eyeballs pulled out or having a blowtorch applied to one’s genitals.
Yoda speak you should use when pass phrase generating you are. :-)
=
97ab903e176f04b358ea884003107fc4
“...or having a blowtorch applied to ones genitals.”
Oh, you’ve had a yeast infection, too?
:-P
Ditto pop fizzle nuk crypto mulch gig
re: How to memorize your crazy passphrase
This is where I get in trouble. Every now and then my mind goes blank, and I can’t remember my 4 digit pin number on my ATM card. So just keeping my passphrase in my head would be a problem.
Or an I missing something?
Encryption doesn’t work that way. Imagine having a bowlful of small 3D shapes such as spheres, cubes, and triangular pyramids. Place a firm sheet over it with cutouts of one shape, say squares. The result will be nothing but cube outputs. Then place all the resulting objects in another bowl and there is only one shape of filter to allow them to pass through again.
Not a perfect example, but it should point out why you have to use the same filter to encrypt and decrypt your files.
I’ll stick with “Password123” thank you very much
If BB wants to snoop, it will.
For years my passwords gave been acronyms made from phrases with numbers and symbols.
I hate it when that happens.
bfl....computer security/passwords
For me, "letmein!" will suffice.
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