If You Want to Change Your Life, Change Your Passwords

Turn the Tedium of Typing into a Transformation Technique

Password Strength, https://xkcd.com/936/

Just a few moments ago I looked at the Perks section of my klout.com account. I found an invitation to TrueKey from Intel. That was just the nudge I needed. So here are my password/personal development musings.

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Passwords are usually seen as a hassle — long strings of high-entropy (i.e., meanigless) characters. But what if we made passwords easy to remember, hard to guess and — on top of that — helping us become better humans?

Enabling Long Passcode

Several weeks ago, on my iPhone I set ‘Require Passcode’ to ‘Immediately’ and ‘Auto Lock’ to ‘1 Minute’. This ensures that every time I want to access my iPhone — several dozen times, — I need to enter a password.

I also activated the ‘Long Passcode’ option. (Confusingly, it actually involves de-activating ‘Simple Passcode’.) Consequently, I am required to enter my Passcode many, many times a day — every time I reach for my iPhone. I am forced to use the inconvenient keyboard with really tiny keys, masked input and no autocorrection.

That kind of a masochistic setup ensures I have to really concentrate entering my password and can no longer rely on mere muscle memory. I usually get my password entered correctly on the second or third attempt. Sometimes it takes even more than that.

Login screen with Long Passcode enabled

I believe this approach offers several distinctive advantages over the easy alternatives:

1. No passcode — this is a total idiocy.
2. The 4-digit passcode — this is the common compromise between security and ease of remembering.
3. Touch ID, TrueKey, and other biometric gimmicks — they are not as secure as you might think, and can be entered without your consent. (I can easily imagine someone pressing my finger on a TouchID device while I’m asleep.)

If an attacker can guess four-digit passcodes at 12 per second, the entire space of 10,000 possible PINs can be guessed in about 13 minutes, or 14 hours at the slower rate of one per five seconds […] — says Computerworld.

What, then are the advantages?

1. Your data is really secure because it’s protected by a hard-to-guess passcode.
2. You are less prone to instinctively reach for your iPhone — you’ve raised a barrier to mindless, habitual message checking and to indulging in addictive social network interactions.
3. You can turn the fact that you need to meticulously recall and carefully type the long to your advantage. You can set the Long Passcode to be a message you want to hear/repeat to yourself several dozen times every day. It can work as a form of autohypnosis.

Now, if you were to be convincingly told a powerful message, what would you like to hear? Would it be ‘ICanAchieveEverythingIWant’? or rather ‘ThingsAreLookingBetterEveryDay2015–05–20’? Go ahead, try how strong your passcode is, using a site such as https://howsecureismypassword.net. Just make sure the phrase you’re using is a positive one, not something like ‘IDontWantToBeAfraid’ — I’m sure you know why ☺

I’ve gleaned this idea from an excellent book Creating Your Best Life: The Ultimate Life List Guide by Caroline Adams Miller and Dr. Michael B. Frisch.