Hampshire IT has a password policy, which you can (and should!) read in full at http://www.hampshire.edu/computing/17299.htm. Here's a quick excerpt to get you started.

Poor, weak passwords have the following characteristics:

• The password contains less than eight characters
• The password is a word found in a dictionary (English or foreign)
• The password is a common usage word such as names of family, pets, friends, co-workers, fantasy characters, etc.
• Computer terms and names, commands, sites, companies, hardware, software.
• The words "Hampshire College" or "Hamp" or any such derivation.
• Birthdays and other personal information, such as addresses and phone numbers.
• Word or number patterns such as aaabbb, qwerty, zyxwvuts, 123321, etc.
• Any of the above spelled backwards.
• Any of the above, preceded or followed by a digit (e.g., secret1, 1secret)

Strong passwords have the following characteristics:

• Contain both upper and lower case characters (e.g., a-z, A-Z)
• Have digits and punctuation characters as well as letters (e.g., 0-9, !*_+)
• Are at least eight alphanumeric characters long.
• Are not a word in any language, slang, dialect, jargon, etc.
• Are not based on personal information, names of family, etc.

So, how can you come up with a strong password? On the one hand, it should be something that can be easily remembered, so that you're not tempted to write it down or store it online. At the same time it should have those pesky characteristics of a strong password, which can seem somewhat daunting at first glance. It might seem like those are mutually exclusive characteristics, but they don't have to be.

One way to do this is create a password based on a song title, line from a movie, affirmation, or other phrase. For example, the phrase might be: "This May Be One Way To Remember" and the password could be: "TmB1w2R!" or "Tmb1W>r~" or some other variation. Whatever you do, if you start with something personal and unique, and then make it unidentifiable with your own coding, you'll end up with a great password.

Oh, and please don't use any of our examples!