CitrusKiwi's Phoenix AZ web design log

Good passwords, bad passwords

  • Last updated: June 29 2016 11:24
  • Created: May 26 2012 09:08
  • 2 min read
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Or, how to be safe on the Internet

Doing what I do, I come across all manner of passwords from clients.  Some are good passwords, and some are bad passwords - some are SERIOUSLY bad passwords.  There are lots of articles around the 'net telling you what you should and shouldn't use.  For me, what you shouldn't use is a complete no-brainer and takes one sentence, not a whole article.  If you can type it into Google and find it on the 'net DON'T use it!  It's that simple.  So, that includes the really dumb ones like your name, your spouse's name or your kid's or pet's name.  1-2-3-4-5, password, admin or any other password shipped with your equipment.  For bad passwords, that's it.

What is a much better question is, what is a good password?  Another simple answer, one YOU didn't come up with!  It's hard for a human to come up with truly random ones.  When I'm securing websites, I use an online password generator.  There are many of them, and a Google search will get you to one you like.  Include lowercase, uppercase, numbers AND special characters, and, in my opinion, it should be at least 8 characters long.  So I just went and generated one - ?8_CLgz) - that's going to be pretty tough to break.  And, no, I haven't used that anywhere!

Why do I recommend a minimum of 8 characters?  It's because the number of combinations increases exponentially the longer your password is.  An 8 character password is way more than twice as difficult to crack as a 4 character one (about 78 million combinations).  So if you want to keep, probably, even the government out of your stuff, try a 15 character one!  But let's consider just an 8 character password.  There are 47 letter, number or character producing keys on a standard English keyboard.  So the permutations are 47 x 2 (using the shift key) = 94 possibilities.  For this demonstration, I'm not going to include the likes of ASCII characters. 

The formula for possibilities (of passwords, not keys) allowing for repetition is nr; permutations of n objects, taken r at a time.  Therefore, in our 8 character password, the equation is 948 = 6,095,689,385,410,816, a number bigger than even the US federal debt!!!  A little over 6 quadrillion!  Now does that make you curious of the permutations of a password 15 characters long?  How about nearly 400 octillion (is that even how you spell it?).

395,291,798,759,682,000,000,000,000,000 - now that's secure!

Authors

Ian Shere

Ian has been in the web design world since the early 2000s. At that time, he was living in New Zealand and was operating a successful architectural design business that won a number of awards. He was an early adopter of web-based marketing for the business, and after having a local designer unsuccessfully complete a website for him, Ian took it upon himself to learn HTML and launch his own site.

25 years of web designing

The first iteration of the site appeared on April 1, 2001 (and it wasn't an April Fool's joke!), meaning Ian has been designing websites for over 25 years.

Web design in the early 2000s was pretty crude by today's standards. Basic HTML and hard-to-manage layouts made building and managing websites tough going. One positive was that, with the advent of an internet-connected phone in everyone's pocket still a few years away, no allowance had to be made to design for mobile-friendliness. How times change.... And there have been changes aplenty! As mentioned, mobile-friendliness isn't a nice-to-have; it's a critical part of the overall web design process. Back then. SEO didn't exist! With so few companies existing on the web, anyone with a presence, no matter how bad, was front-and-center.

When Ian moved to America in 2009, he'd had a fill of architecture and dealing with city processors and planners, and was looking for a new challenge. He naturally transitioned into website design, having already been in that world for 8 years, and, in early 2010, he and his wife set up CitrusKiwi Web Solutions. The name comes from his wife being a Californian girl (hence the Citrus part), and Ian is from New Zealand, where residents are called Kisis (after the national bird).

CitrusKiwi Web Solutions founded 2010

For over 15 years, CitrusKiwi Web Solutions has been providing cutting-edge web design and hosting solutions to America and around the world!

Since its foundation, CitrusKiwi has delivered quality website design to a range of business industries, from the trades to aviation, to legal and non-profit organisations. When they set up CitrusKiwi, Ian and his wife looked to bring website design to every business, regardless of size, with a particular emphasis on small businesses and non-profits. They were also one of the first design houses to offer a monthly subscription model to enable even more businesses to benefit from fully-managed websites.

As the senior web designer, Ian has personally overseen hundreds of websites, from building and redesigning to hosting, SEO, and more. He has kept pace with the changes in the industry, always learning and reinventing how CitrusKiwi meets the current challenges and opportunities that are available in the marketplace. Whether it's utilizing new technologies like responsive web design or carefully using AI and Large Language Models to enhance client websites, Ian is constantly researching new methods and technology to give their clients the very best in website design.