February 1 Is "Change Your Password Day"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/parmiter/2505803867/

I love this idea from Gizmodo:  Change Your Password Day!

<-- I also love this "password" image I found with a Creative Commons search.  Click on the link if it's too small to read. It's worth it.

You want your students to be safe online and, of course, you want to be safe as well.  If you use the same password for every site that requires one, you are asking for trouble.  Here's one way to build a strong password that will be unique to each site you visit yet easy to remember.   It's a good thing to teach your students, too.

Below the video is a poster that one school uses to help students learn to create strong password.  It's from The Daring Librarian who points out:

"According to CNN Tech, an 8 digit password can be hacked in 2 hours but a 12 character password would take 17 years."

http://www.flickr.com/photos/info_grrl/6609623265/

I also found some great tips in Crack This: How to Pick Strong Passwords and Keep Them That Way.  I especially liked the ideas in the section on complex passwords. Using song lyrics is a great idea!  Easy to remember and hard to crack!

Do you have trouble remembering your usernames and passwords?  So do your students!  Here are some ideas for helping students with that task (and you might use some of them yourself!)  I suggest investing in a Password manager like 1Password or similar program.