password

security An arbitrary string of characters chosen by a user

or system administrator and used to authenticate the user

when he attempts to log on, in order to prevent unauthorised

access to his account.

A favourite activity among unimaginative computer nerds and

crackers is writing programs which attempt to discover

passwords by using lists of commonly chosen passwords such as

people's names (spelled forward or backward). It is

recommended that to defeat such methods passwords use a

mixture of upper and lower case letters or digits and avoid

proper names and real words. If you have trouble remembering

random strings of characters, make up an acronym like

"ihGr8trmP" ("I have great trouble remembering my password").

(1994-10-27)