The 4+1 Tier Password System for Staying Safe and Sane

http://chetansurpur.com/blog/2011/8/tiered-passwords.html

by chetan51 • 15 years ago

13 17 15 years ago

godarderik• 15 years ago

I don't think that my email is only a Tier 3. I have half of my online communications in Gmail and would be very upset if it were compromised.

chetan514• 15 years ago

I agree. I toyed with putting it in Tier 2, but ended up just leaving it in 3 (since it logically makes sense there) and using the security trick I use for Tier 2 to make it safer.

mikeburrelljr• 15 years ago

EMAIL deserves to be TIER 1 in the regards that if one breaks this layer of security, they are often able to gain access to most anything, including financial institutions.

fourspace• 15 years ago

Nice writeup. I've been using a system like this for years, having reached many of the same conclusions.

The only wrinkle is when sites require you to use capital letters, special characters, restrict password length, etc.

chetan514• 15 years ago

I'm sure you can make the necessary adjustments pretty easily in that case too. Maybe have a system where you make the first character capitalized and put an exclamation mark at the end, or something.

jayfuerstenberg• 15 years ago

Agreed. What makes a password secure is the uncertainties surrounding it. The characters that comprise it and the length should be as freeform as possible. Then hackers can't make any assumptions.

This is in fact how password generation is implemented in KEYBOX ( http://www.jayfuerstenberg.com/keybox/ ). The only problem is some sites don't always accept the passwords KEYBOX generates for you.

dougws• 15 years ago

I'm amazed that an XKCD comic has inspired at least 3 front-page articles on HN. I think passwords are one of those things that, even in the tech world, people know that they should do better at but just haven't gotten around to it yet. That certainly includes me, and I think I may switch to the system outlined in this post.

nfm2• 15 years ago

Some good thoughts here.

Perhaps it would be better to have a more obscure suffix for Tier 1 passwords. Otherwise, if a password is compromised, a motivated attacker wouldn't have much trouble guessing your other Tier 1 passwords.

"wheatgrass makes octagrams in paypal" leads trivially to "wheatgrass makes octagrams in gmail" and "wheatgrass makes octagrams in #{bank_of_choice}".

chetan514• 15 years ago

Good point. What would you use as a suffix then?

kilburn• 15 years ago

1. Switch your keyboard to dvorak (can be done with a key combination in all OSes)

2. Write "paypal" as you would in a querty keyboard

The result is both easy to remember and very hard to guess ;)

nfm2• 15 years ago

You could transpose the word in some way. So maybe move each letter two keys to the right - 'p' becomes ']', 'a' is 'd' and so on. They you end up with ']di]dl' instead of 'paypal', which is a bit more obscure. It might not work so well if the rest of your passphrase is made up of dictionary words.

I'm a bit paranoid though - most compromises aren't targeted and if a hacker gets a list of 20,000 hashes to crack they aren't going to inspect them individually.

tednaleid• 15 years ago

I disagree with password schemes like this. Every website should have a unique password. Sharing a password across websites based on their "tier", opens you up to an entire tier getting cracked if any website is compromised. That's inexcusable.

You should not know most of your passwords.

You should only need to remember one password, the one that opens up your password vault and gives you access to the other massively strong passwords that you never need to even type, let alone memorize. With tools like 1password and lastpass, this is doable today.

Also? Many banking websites have really shitty password restrictions that prevent truly strong passwords, especially if you use things humans can remember. Wells Fargo has a 14 character max. Vanguard has a 10 character max (though they say it's 50, it's not). Discover has a 10 character max. I'm sure there are others just as bad.

chetan514• 15 years ago

Note about Email in Tier 3 -- it's logically placed in Tier 3, but actually has the same security mechanism as Tier 1. The reason it's placed in Tier 3 is that if it's compromised, it at least doesn't directly compromise Tier 1.

sardonicbryan• 15 years ago

The one issue I haven't seen addressed in any of these password posts is that many sites/services (like my corporate login, for example) require you to use both numbers and capitalization. So what I've started doing is using the same 3 word combo with l33t substitutions, capitalization and punctuation and the first n (like I'm telling you guys) letteres from the service I'm logging into added to the end.

mustpax• 15 years ago

Well written article but this password scheme is neither convenient nor feasible for lay persons. You have to remember 5 different passwords and also remember which websites belong each category. If you're an active enough internet user that you need 4/5 password tiers, you're going to have plenty of websites that straddle the line between BS and important. This sort of fine-grained categorization just adds to the cognitive overload, which is the current problem with password management we're trying to solve.

I'm pretty convinced that the right solution is to use a password manager with one very strong password that you memorize.

jogloran• 15 years ago

The whole point of a 'pick random words' scheme is to maximise the amount of entropy. With every stipulation on the form of the words you make your scheme ever so slightly less effective.

Vitaly• 15 years ago

Email is tier 3?!!! This is insane. There is not much more important then your primary email account! Primarily because you can get access to pretty much anything once you break into email.

The 4+1 Tier Password System for Staying Safe and Sane

Related Stories