![]() In that section, you’ll see a button that says Generate 3 passwords. The very last section in the tool is called Generate Password(s). Oddly enough, I’d like to start at the bottom of xkpasswd. Generate Password(s) Generate 3 Passwords Button I’m going to walk you through the settings at and show you how flexible this tool is to make passwords you won’t hate. With that looooong introduction, let me dig into explaining how to actually use xkpasswd to create strong passwords in a way that you can remember and type. If you think it’s as cool as I do, be sure to hit his Donate button to help pay the bills. I’ll remind you again at the end, but creating this tool took Bart a long time to write and prove the math, and he continues to pay for the server to support it. Unique passwords are critical to keep your stuff safe, and no matter how memorable the passwords are, you simply cannot remember them all so use a password manager. ![]() No matter how good your memory is, if you aren’t using a password manager, you’re bound to reuse passwords or to start mutating one of the good ones we’re about to create. In fact, I use it so much that it is a pinned tab in Safari so that I can simply click the tiny little square tab and I’m ready to create a password that I won’t hate.Īs you make these long, complex, and yet easy to remember passwords, I’m hoping that you’re using a password manager like 1Password or LastPass. I use it all the time to create my passwords. ![]() While I’ve mentioned it a million times on the show, and Bart and I have talked about it together, it occurred to me recently that I’ve never written a guide on how to use xkpasswd. Bart has a full explanation on all the tech behind this tool at bartbusschots.ie/…īart’s tool is available as a user-friendly website at. He called his project called XKPASSWD (for a head nod to XKCD) and later Bart published it as an open source project on Github calling it Crypt-HSXKPasswd. From these ideas, Bart created a tool to help people create long, strong and yet memorable and typeable passwords. Both the XKCD cartoon and Steve Gibson were trying to get across to us that it’s possible to create really good passwords that we can actually remember.īart Busschots started noodling these two ideas in combination: XKCDs illustration of how common words can make good passwords, and Steve Gibson on the fact that longer by definition is way harder to crack. ![]() ![]() I won’t even begin to try to explain the math behind it (but here’s a link to the 37-minute explanation). The example strong password he uses is “correct horse battery staple” and that line has become a staple phrase amongst those who encourage good passwords.Īround that same era, Steve Gibson made a very compelling case on the podcast Security Now! with Leo LaPorte for the importance of password length over password complexity. In the illustration he explains how by forcing humans to create complex passwords, we have actually encouraged them into creating easy to guess passwords that are terribly difficult to remember.īeing a nerd, he includes how many bits of entropy are in these awful passwords and then explains how if we just string four random, common words together we’d have much more difficult passwords to crack that were actually possible to remember. What is xkpasswd?īack in 2011, Randall Munroe, the author of the fantastically nerdy and hilarious comic strip XKCD wrote a comic he calls Password Strength. If you already know what xkpasswd is, and you want to jump right to the tutorial, click here. ![]()
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