Request for User ID and Password

Designing a Personal, User-friendly Password

Passwords vary in the degree of public awareness, security protection and frequency of change. The most public, and therefore least secure, password might be one that is given to members of a group, a committee or some other organization. for instance, "publiclibrary", "internet" or "AAAfinancecommittee" are all examples of easily remembered passwords.

Less easily attacked passwords might be built from such a basic form. for instance, "smith12nov34street" or "AAAchairpersonSUE". These are slightly more secure, but being relatively easily predictable should not relied upon to actually block unauthorized access. Effective access control requires passwords which are more difficult to guess or to find automatically, and these are the subject of much of the rest of this article.