Fix your terrible, insecure passwords in five minutes

via slate.com

"Everyone knows it's bad to use the same password for different sites. People do it anyway because remembering different passwords is annoying. Remembering different difficult passwords is even more annoying. ...I found a foolproof technique to create passwords that are near-impossible to crack yet easy to remember. Even better, it'll take just five minutes of your time."

Read on to get the entire article.

Here is the short version:

1. Start with a memorable yet random phrase. Something you don't have to write down and will remember on your own. ex: Mom's pork chops are always dry.
2. Turn it into an acronym ex: mpcaad
3. Substitute some capital letters, symbols and numbers ex: Mpc@Ad

And you're done.

Use a unique phrase for every important account, like banks and emails and credit cards. You can use one phrase for similar, non-sensitive accounts like all your online cooking website memberships.

The expert in this article recommends changing your main email account's password on a monthly basis, because more likely than not it has info on every online account you've ever signed up for. He gives a specific trick on how to approach this in the article.