By Dana-Marie Battaglia
Published: March 26, 2018
Many years ago, I devised a handy method that enables me to have a different password for every website without needing to memorize or write them down!
On March 11th on CBC Radio’s “The Sunday Edition”, host Michael Enright shared his painful experiences with the multitude of online passwords in his life. I instantly wrote in and told him I was going to change his life. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it.
For about a decade now, this method has worked wonderfully for myself and my family, and yet, it never occurred to me to share it beyond that. Regardless, there was no turning back after the executive producer of The Sunday Edition read my letter, and asked me if I would teach it to Michael on the air.
Just like that, it was time. Time to birth my password baby into the world. My magic password wand. My handy dandy digital invention, which as any prudent inventor would, I have given my namesake: “The Dana Key”.
Before I share it, it’s important to note that the focus of this method is convenience, not security, and that it’s primarily intended for the massive bulk of everyday websites that require account creation for access to content, subscriptions, and services. You’ll notice with this method that while all of your passwords are unique, they are all inherently linked together.
You’ll therefore want to keep them especially private, and give special consideration if applying it to your email, banking and other websites that contain sensitive information.
In light of this, before you start creating your own “Dana Key” and subsequently updating your passwords, I strongly recommend you first read the important tips I’ve provided on my website at www.ddiy.ca/danakey
The Dana Key
The trick is to create and follow a consistent sequence of rules to combine one simple password with letters from specific positions within the current website’s address/URL.
All of your passwords will contain a Master Password Key and a Password Sequence:
Your Master Password Key
In order to be sure your passwords are compatible with 99% of websites, you must choose:
- Three letters: (with at least one letter uppercase)
- In this example I’ll use my dad’s initials: taB
- One number: (see my website for how to make it vary in each password)
- For this example I’ll just use the number: 6
- One special character: (@, &, !, #, ?, etc.)
- For this example, we’ll use: !
Your own personal Password Sequence
Your Password Sequence is the order in which you combine/intertwine the specific letters from the URL with your Master Password Key. Make every password using the same Password Sequence.
Now we’ll make a password for www.cbcmusic.ca using the above example Master Password Key and this example Password Sequence:
- First letter of the URL, cbcmusic: c
- c
- First 2 letters from our Master Password Key: ta
- c ta
- Last two letters of the URL cbcmusic: ic
- c ta ic
- Last letter from our Master Password Key, uppercase:
- c ta ic B
- Number: 6
- c ta ic B 6
- Special character: !
- c ta ic B 6 !
- Our cbcmusic.ca password is: ctaicB6!
It’s a beautiful password, sure to receive the “strong” rating, and you will never need to write it down or memorize it! It will take time at first but once you use your own same sequence over and over, it will come naturally and quickly, I promise! Good luck! Feel free to contact me with any questions.
Donny says
This is a great idea for non consequential sites.
I had totally forgotten what we did as 10 year olds. We’d stick “engin” in the middle of every word, so that it sounded like a foreign language that only other buddies could understand. Of course it was a great laugh for us , in front of adults , to say
“fenginuck enginoff”; until my dad caught on and delivered a smack around the ear!!