Write Down Your Password

Microsoft’s Jesper Johansson urged people to write down their passwords.

This is good advice, and I’ve been saying it for years.

Simply, people can no longer remember passwords good enough to reliably defend against dictionary attacks, and are much more secure if they choose a password too complicated to remember and then write it down. We’re all good at securing small pieces of paper. I recommend that people write their passwords down on a small piece of paper, and keep it with their other valuable small pieces of paper: in their wallet.

Posted on June 17, 2005 at 8:40 AM • 159 Comments