security An arbitrary string of characters chosen by a user
when he attempts to log on, in order to prevent unauthorised
access to his account.
crackers is writing programs which attempt to discover
passwords by using lists of commonly chosen passwords such as
people's names (spelled forward or backward). It is
recommended that to defeat such methods passwords use a
mixture of upper and lower case letters or digits and avoid
proper names and real words. If you have trouble remembering
random strings of characters, make up an acronym like
"ihGr8trmP" ("I have great trouble remembering my password").
(1994-10-27)