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    The Spanner
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    Made by Gareth Heyes
    Follow me on Twitter: @garethheyes

    Javascript for hackers!

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    Better passwords

    By Gareth Heyes (@hackvertor)

    Published 18 years 11 months ago • Last updated March 22, 2025 • ⏱️ 2 min read

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    Choosing a good password is hard work because of course they are easily forgotten, how can you overcome this? I'm sure a lot of you out there are aware of this technique but in case you haven't here goes.

    Silver monkeys die young

    Now in order for this to be effective, you must think of something completely random but stupid enough for you to remember. So a good example of this would be "99! Silver monkeys die young" and you take the first letter from each word leaving numbers and other characters. The phrase becomes "99!SmDy" which is quite a good strong password.

    Changing the case also helps secure your password so think of a pattern to do with your password which allows you to mix the case of the letters, in my example I used alternate lower and upper case letters. Below are some example phrases please don't use them for your passwords but think of your own unique combinations. Feel free to comment with your stupid phrase ideas though :)

    Examples

    "If I'm still @ work @ 10 I'm not happy" becomes "IiS@w@10InH" "Green fish cross the road with slippers on!" becomes "GfCtRwSo!" "Gareth talks about coding & security too much" becomes "GtAc&sTm"

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