The Pain of Creating and Managing Passwords in Today’s Online Environment

Creating password protected accounts is part-and-parcel for operating on the web these days, but no two sites approach password creation in the same way. One site might allow you nearly unlimited freedom in the characters you choose and the length of your password, but another may limit you to as few as eight characters with no special characters allowed. Needless to say the ‘creation process’ can be frustrating much less managing the ever growing number of passwords we need on hand to access all our accounts. With this in mind Casey Johnston from Ars Technica decided to ask some companies about their password policies and received some interesting responses…

Keyboard photo courtesy of kewl (Tristan Schmurr). [Flickr]

From the blog post: “Most sites seem to have their own particular password bugaboos, but it’s rarely, if ever, clear why we can’t create passwords as long or short or as varied or simple as we want. (Well, the argument against short and simple is concrete, but the others are not immediately clear). Regardless of the password generation scheme, there can be a problem with it: a multi-word passphrase is too long and has no symbols; a gibberish password is too short, and what’s the % doing in there?”

Have you run across websites that made it difficult to create a strong and secure password (i.e. small number of characters, no special symbols, etc.)? Is your password collection secure and in good condition? Do you use any special software such as LastPass or other methods to manage your passwords? Make sure to share your thoughts and experiences with your fellow readers in the comments!