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Singing Passwords

Talking of password generation, if you need to come up with a secure password without the help of softwarey, you should make it one you can sing!

Matt Haughey (of MetaFilter fame) blogged about this technique back in 2005, having picked it up from Rusty (of Kuro5hin fame).

As an example, my favourite Prince & The Revolution B-side is She’s Always In My Hair 1, and the second verse has been stuck in my head for a decade or two:

Whenever I feel like not 2 great at all
Whenever I'm all alone
And even if I hit the wrong notes
She's always in my boat
She's always there

Take the initial letters, and you get:

wifln2gaawiaaaeiihtwnsaimbsat

Or, in l33tsp34k, with a bit of random capitalisation:

wIflN2944WI4443iiH7WN54im85@

A very secure password, that’s easy—for me, and probably me alone—to remember.

  1. I favour the cut on the flip of the Paisley Park 7”. Specifically the Japanese promo-only 7” (Catalogue Number PS 1028) which is to my ears a better quality pressing than any of the official releases. That’s much too rare a disc to play often, so I tend to listen to my worn out UK issue Paisley Park 7”, the UK-only Girls & Boys 7” double-pack (W8586F), or the US Raspberry Beret 12” (W9052T), which due to an error at the pressing plant has She’s Always In My Hair on it twice. And you thought I was nerdy about software. ↩