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diff --git a/src/index.html b/src/index.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d1b2b8b --- /dev/null +++ b/src/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,222 @@ +<!doctype html> +<html lang="en"> + <head> + <title>How to Choose a Password</title> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/site.css"> + </head> + <body> + <main> + <h1>How to Choose a Password</h1> + + <aside> + <p> + <strong> + the short version: + </strong> + Use <a href="#generate">randomly generated</a> passwords and use a + <a href="#store">password manager</a> to store them. + </p> + </aside> + + <h2> + <a name="why"> + Why strong passwords are important + </a> + </h2> + + <p> + When choosing a password, it’s important to make sure that no one can + guess it — that’s the whole point, right? + </p> + + <p> + If we want to make sure no one can guess our passwords, we need to + think about what <strong>adversaries</strong> might be trying to guess + them and how they might do it. This is part of a process called + <strong>threat modeling</strong>. Some adversaries we can think about + are: + </p> + + <ul> + <li> + <strong>People who know us.</strong> Our friends know a lot about us, + like our birthday, our pets’ names, our favorite songs, and other + personal information. Even if we’re not worried about friends + guessing our passwords, an adversary might easily find these details + on the Internet, so we shouldn’t use any of these things in our + passwords. + </li> + <li> + <strong>People who know a password we’ve used in the past.</strong> + Unfortunately, it’s not unusual for passwords to be discovered by + adversaries. This might happen if a website or app we use is + compromised, or if a computer we type our password on has been + infected with malware. This means it’s a bad idea to create a new + password by making a variation of another one. + </li> + <li> + <strong>People who know a lot of common passwords.</strong> Some + adversaries have compiled “password dictionaries” containing + thousands of commonly used passwords. Even if an adversary is not + specifically trying to find <em>our</em> password, they might use + lists like this to discover our password if it is one of the common + ones. + </li> + </ul> + + <p> + <strong> + The way to make sure that no one can guess our passwords is to make + them completely random. + </strong> + When our passwords are randomly generated, they don’t have any + information related to us that friends might be able to guess. If an + adversary learns one of our passwords, they will be no closer to + guessing any of our other passwords. And of course, randomly generated + passwords are very unlikely to be listed in password dictionaries. + </p> + + <h2> + <a name="generate"> + How to generate a random password + </a> + </h2> + + <p> + Being truly random is something that people are very bad at. Even when + we <em>think</em> we are being random, there are often patterns + associated with the “random” things we come up with. + </p> + + <p> + When we want to create good, random passwords, one thing we can use is + software (such as our password manager, more on this below) to help us. + </p> + + <p> + Another method is to use a word list and dice to create a random + passphrase. The + <a href="https://www.eff.org">Electronic Frontier Foundation</a>, + a digital privacy advocacy group, has created + <a href="https://www.eff.org/files/2016/07/18/eff_large_wordlist.txt"> + a wordlist you can download + </a> + for this purpose. To use this method, you’ll need five dice (or you can + roll a single die five times). Here’s how: + </p> + + <ol> + <li> + Roll five dice (or one die five times) and read the number from each + so that you have five digits, for example: 1, 6, 3, 5, 2. + </li> + <li> + Look at + <a href="https://www.eff.org/files/2016/07/18/eff_large_wordlist.txt"> + the wordlist + </a> + to find the word next to the number you rolled. + In this case, we find the line <code>16352 comfort</code>, so our + word word is <strong>comfort</strong>. + </li> + <li> + Repeat the first two steps until you have at least six words. You + will end up with a random phrase like + <strong>comfort tableful booth tulip dandelion stable</strong> + which is your new random passphrase. + </li> + <li> + Make up a little story to help remember the passphrase. For example: + “The diner had a <strong>comfort</strong>able + <strong>tableful</strong> in the <strong>booth</strong> with + <strong>tulip</strong>s and <strong>dandelion</strong>s in a + <strong>stable</strong> vase.” + </li> + </ol> + + <p> + If an adversary wanted to guess our passphrase, even if they had our + wordlist and knew exactly how we created it, they would need to + correctly guess 30 random die rolls in the right order. The probability + of this is 1 in 221,073,919,720,733,357,899,776. It is + <em>extremely</em> unlikely they would be successful, as it would take + three billion years of making a million guesses every second before + they would be likely to succeed. + </p> + + <h2> + <a name="store"> + How to remember your passwords + </a> + </h2> + + <p> + It’s also important not to use the same password twice. Imagine if we + generate a completely random password and use it for our email account, + and we also use it for a social media site. If an adversary learns our + email address and password for the social media site, they could easily + try that same password on our email account, and since we used the same + random password, they would succeed easily. This is why you should only + use each password for a single site. + </p> + + <p> + When there are a lot of different things we need passwords for, it + quickly becomes hard to remember all of them. Luckily, we can use a + <strong>password manager</strong> to help us out. Password managers are + software programs that help us securely store our passwords. + </p> + + <p> + Imagine writing down all of our passwords on a sheet of paper, and then + scrambling them all up according to a secret pattern. Even though + someone might look at the paper, they won’t be able to figure out any + of our passwords without knowing the secret pattern we used to scramble + them. Password managers use a similar idea; they use a + <strong>master passphrase</strong> to encrypt the list of all of our + passwords. The master passphrase is like the scrambling pattern: an + adversary can access the list of all our passwords if and only if they + discover the master passphrase. + </p> + + <p> + It’s very important to use a long, randomly generated master passphrase + because all of our passwords are only as good as our master passphrase. + When we use a password manager, we only need to remember our passphrase + to unlock our list of passwords. The password manager stores all of our + other passwords for us. + </p> + + <p> + Another benefit to using a password manager is that they help us + generate new passwords when we need them. Rather than rolling dice + every time we sign up for a new account, we can let your password + manager come up with completely random password for us. Since our + password manager also stores the new password for us, we never even + need to know what it is! We can just copy and paste it when we need to + log in. + </p> + + <p> + There are several password managers available. You should do some + research to find one that will work for you. Here are a few suggestions + to start with: + </p> + + <ul> + <li><a href="https://keepass.info/">KeePass</a></li> + <li><a href="https://1password.com/">1Password</a></li> + <li><a href="https://www.passwordstore.org/">pass</a></li> + </ul> + + <footer> + The content of this site is <a href="http://unlicense.org">in the public domain</a>. + <a href="https://github.com/benburwell/howtochooseapassword.com"> + Contributions are welcomed + </a>. + </footer> + </main> + </body> +</html> |