Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 13:40:12 -0500 (EST)
   From: AlberCrombie <cesnyd01@starbase.spd.louisville.edu>

   Robert G Orick verbalized:

   > [ A tale of woe about his account being compromised and vandalized. ]

   Dude - as a computer consultant I have a few pieces of advice.

	   - new password - do not make it like the old one, not even in flavor
   or style.  If you used anime-type passwords in the past try using football
   terms or something.

If you want to use a word in a dictionary you can vastly increase the
difficulty of guessing your password by adding a number and or some
punctuation to it, e.g. "ranma1.5" (well, that wouldn't be a good
example, but pick a random word and add a number to the beginning or
end).

	   - try to pick a password that you can easily and quickly type that
   no one else can read your fingers while you type it.  (One handed/ mostly
   one handed passwords are extremely quick)

A trick I picked up from Jeff Schiller, MIT network God, is to include
doubled letters in your password, e.g. "alloy" (but pick a longer
one); someone who can see you hit the keys will find it very difficult
to figure out that you hit one key twice, let alone which key....

   [...]
	   - If you give your password to someone else (I DO NOT ADVISE THIS AT
   ALL!) make sure they can be trusted and they are bright enough not to SCREW
   UP!

My advice: don't do this, period (except perhaps with a spouse); your
userid/password is your identity, and you should no more lend it out
that you should your driver;s license/student id.

	   - Never leave your self logged on and leave the terminal unattended. 
   I'm willing to bet that you left a terminal and forgot to log off and
   someone took advantage of it.  I've seen this happen too many times (not to
   mention it's happened to me)

Many systems (e.g. Win 3.1 (but why bother?), NT, X Windows) have
screen lock programs with password protection, often incorporated with
a screen saver.  Engage the screen lock when you can remember, and set
your screen saver timeout to be short for when you don't.

Good luck; I had someone read my password once---fortunately he didn't
do any damage, but I use machine generated (random but pronouncable)
passwords, and type them real fast if I can be observed.

					- Harold