Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for September 26, 2019

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My wifi password is “Thisisntevenmywifi7”.

How did Pastis get the default password to my gateway? Now I’m going to have to change it again!

I hate to wonder what Pig’s wifi user name also is.

I think that is a “strong” password, Pig. But if you make a typo, good luck!

Mine is MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofySacramento.

They told me it had to be at least 8 characters long & include at least one capital.

This reminds me of a Dilbert where the new rule was, your password had to be ten random alphanumeric/symbols, you couldn’t write it down, and you had to change it every three days.

WINDOWS PASSWORD

WINDOWS: Please enter your new password.

USER: potato

WINDOWS: Sorry, the password must be more than 8 characters.

USER: boiled potato

WINDOWS: Sorry, the password must contain 1 numerical character.

USER: 1 boiled potato

WINDOWS: Sorry, the password cannot have blank spaces.

USER: 20damnedboiledpotato

WINDOWS: Sorry, the password must contain at least one uppercase character.

USER: 20DAMNEDboiledpotato

WINDOWS: Sorry, the password cannot use more than one uppercase character consecutively.

USER: 20DamnedBoiledPotatoYouIdiotGiveMeAccessNow!

WINDOWS: Sorry, the password cannot contain punctuation.

USER: IWillHuntYouDown20DamnedBoiledPotatoYouIdiotGiveMeAccessNow

WINDOWS: SORRY, THAT PASSWORD IS ALREADY IN USE

The key to a strong password isn’t random special characters or capital letters or numbers or such, it’s length. More is better. Think of a (mostly) nonsense but easily remembered passphrase, 15+ characters. E.g. IlovePigbutnotRat. It would take a quantum computer to break that.

A good password is several words and numbers you’ll remember but that have nothing to do with family birthdates, phone number, family names, etc. And when asked for answers to security questions use words totally unrelated to the questions asked (i.e. use “asparagus” when asked for your mother’s maiden name or “Hemingway” when asked for your favorite color). Or just use a password manager. (I wonder if there’s a password manager called “Karen”? Hmm…)

We once had a rule that our passwords couldn’t contain our user names (which were our actual names, all lowercase, with an underscore between first name and last) or “any part of your user name”. I think I managed to make them realize that this would actually make passwords easier to guess, given that “any part” could include “even a single letter”, reducing the allowable characters considerably in some cases.

Paranoid much, Pig?!

Wi-Fi tis Cable’s 2nd cousin ….

Well, at least Pig included some non-alphabetic characters.

Have to plead guilty to this one – but goodness, not to THAT extent! Great strip today, Mr. Pastis!

The difficulty of breaking a password is very nearly equal to the inverse log of its length.

https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm

Make his password his birthday.

Poor PIG! so insecure…..

I wrote a program to convert a phrase into password gobbledygook. Makes life simpler. I also have two step verification on important stuff.

I use abbreviated versions of my favorite bands and songs with the year the song came out.

Hey! That pig is trying to hack my router!

That would keep me off the WiFi

And just like that Pig gave us FTL travel.

So Pig has been taken lessons from Commander Data it seems.

https://youtu.be/IPphyjkXnPc

One of my work passwords was required to be in the format of consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant. And had to be changed every 35 days and no more than 2 letters could repeat in the same location. AND no password could be repeated in a 2-year span. Luckily for me, many genus names of plants follow that format – cornus, cercis, – but it’s been so long that I’m not thinking of others immediately.

We also use a simple non-sense sentence. 23 letters, numbers and symbols.

Rejected, you must use only ASCII characters. Also no columns, carriage returns or line feeds.

All of these complicated password rules are a pain. That’s why my passwords are as easy as π (to 100 decimal places)

“Password” isn’t a safe one to use?

Reminds me of: https://youtu.be/bHTazxaQ9bs (fun song from the ’60s).

This is why I love Apple Keychain.

That’s pretty much what Cox cable wants you to do!

WIFI Router Name: DEATHSTARPassword: SkyW4lker

Because only Luke can access the DeathStar.

“Mellon”

Password? Allen Ludden.

20 random characters are usually plenty.

My wifi password is *******************************. Did everyone get that? Notice the third, fifth, and ninth letters are capitalized. Oh, and don’t forget the hyphen.

Hey! Pig stole my password!

https://xkcd.com/936/

Next time I have to change my password, I’m going to look at the trending hashtags on Twitter and use one of those.

I have a bunch of passwords; the older ones are fairly simple, but the newer ones are longer and stronger. I have to keep a written list of them (I wouldn’t trust saving them in any file on my computer)….

Has anyone tried the Google suggestion for a strong password? I tried it once, and it didn’t work at all (it didn’t get saved properly, so I had to start all over).

I often wonder if 128 bit encryption is adequate….

Mine is 20 characters long so I know the feeling xD

Pig must get his WiFi through AT&T

Mine is only 26 digits long. Yes, I have it memorized!

Back in the pre Windows days, I would use the character made by keying ALT-255 on the number pad as the last character or as a “space” character in a password. Back then, it looked like a space but MOST people had no Idea what it was or how to use the ALT key and the number pad to type special characters.

My mother locked herself out of three different tablets because of her insistence of using complicated passwords, then losing the papers they were written on. Instead of having me reset them for her, she bought new ones.

I use a password manager. I don’t even know my own passwords.