Athazagoraphobic (*) or MSPDS - Multi-Syllabic Password Displacement Solution

Athazagoraphobic* Multi-Syllabic Password Displacement Solution
(MSPDS - or How to create passwords that are easy to remember)

As an instructional applications analyst of a rather large school district in west Texas (EPISD), I have not only to remember several passwords for different accounts at different computers, but these passwords have to make sense so that I don't have to be consulting my Palm Pilot constantly. A password-generating solution came to me after studying the "standard" US keyboard, and realizing that any given character has static neighbors. So, bring a cup of your favorite brew, sit by a keyboard and read along.

Take the word Washington - to use this simple to remember name as a password in a computer keyboard using MPDS (don't you love acronyms?) first separate the word into syllables: wash-ing-ton (use your own phonetic approximations- this only has to make sense to you). Then study the keyboard for a minute, and realize that any given letter has a character that is above and to the left of it (northwest neighbor) - for "w" it is the number '2', for "a" it is 'q', for "s" it is the letter 'w' and for "h" it is 'y' - you are basically displacing known letters to their neighboring spaces: "wash" then becomes '2qwy'.

Now, after some more keyboard contemplation, for the next syllable ("ing") we are going to displace up and to the right: "i" is then '9'(nine), "n" is 'j' and "g" is 'y'. So for this up and to the right (northeast) displacement "ing" becomes '9jy'. The last syllable ("ton") can either return to the up and to the left displacement (northwest) becoming '59h', or can be shifted straight to the right of the letters: "t" becomes 'y', "o" becomes 'p' and "n" becomes 'm'. Naturally, there are many combinations and permutations possible...

Thus Washington can be
a) \wash\ /ing/ \ton\ : 2qwy9jy59h
b) \wash\ /ing/ ton_ : 2qwy9jyypm - simple, right? You can also try,
c) \washington\ : 2qwy8ht59h (all displaced in a NW direction)
d) /washington/ : 3weu9jy60j (all displaced in a NE direction)
e) washington_ : esdjomhypm (all displaced one key to the right)

Naturally you can create your own MPDS by starting with any given displacement and incorporating a multi-syllabic component (or not), along with upper and lower cases to boot. In my own experience with password/character restrictions, the \all NW\ displacement works the best - if you stick to known words, you won't use an unacceptable character.

Enjoy (3hi07 or 4jkpu or 3hu96 or 4ji07 or rmkpu...)

*Baby Boomer with Fear of forgetting...

Alan A Hodson
Technology Services/El Paso ISD, TX
aahodson@episd.org
http://links.episd.org
-=o=-