# Dyslexia-friendly passwords Canonical page: https://dominiklukes.net/research/dyslexia-friendly-passwords Journal article by Dominik Lukeš, in the Dyslexia Review 25(1), p. 23 (2014). Journal article · Dominik Lukeš · Dyslexia Review 25(1), p. 23 · 2014 Author's own text. The published version is not online. *This is the text of the author's Dyslexia Action Tech Thursday post on the same subject (2014). The article as printed in Dyslexia Review may differ.* ## What is this about? Almost all advice on how to choose a good password is bad for somebody with dyslexia. **People with dyslexia tend to be very bad at remembering, reading and writing nonsense words**. But that’s what you’re told you have to use for a safe password. Luckily, that’s not exactly true. This post will give you some tips on a secure, easy-to-remember and easy-to-type password. We will start with the tips and leave the explanation for the end. ## Two key things about passwords 1. **Go long!** A longer password is better than a short random password 2. Use a **password manager** ### Long passwords Any secure password has to be **at least 12 characters long**! Anything shorter will not stand up to a serious attack. The good news is that **the longer the password, the less random it has to be**. The more types of characters you use, the better. So you should include at least one number and one capital letter. We’ll give you some examples below. #### Get a good password in 2 steps 1. Pick 3 or 4 words you know how to type reliably 2. Add some numbers in between or at the end #### Examples of dyslexia friendly passwords - MyDogJohnBarksNightly12 - 45SeemPruneShone - This37IsFranksName89 - barcelonaberlinholidaY2012 ### Password Manager You should never reuse your password! Even very respectable websites (like LinkedIn) often get hacked and thieves than try to match your password and your email on other sites. But this would be impossible if you had to remember them all. Luckily, there are some **free password managers**. Let’s have a look at 2 that are recommended by security experts: #### LastPass [LastPass](https://lastpass.com/) is an **online service** that gives you **plugins for all popular browsers** that: - Generates a secure password when registering - Remembers your user name and password for each site - Fills in the login form automatically when you visit a site You can even use it to securely store your contact details and your credit cards to save you time with online shopping. LastPass is essential **when you have multiple computers**. **LastPass** is recommended and trusted by many security experts so it is as safe as anything can be. It also has mobile apps but you have to pay an annual fee of \$12 to use it. I have been using LastPass for the last three years. #### KeePass If you don’t want to store absolutely anything online, you have to install an application on your computer. A popular and absolutely free choice is [KeePass](http://keepass.info/)**.** KeePass will: - Store all your passwords and other sensitive information - Generate secure passwords - Carry passwords securely on a memory stick to use on other computers - Fill in forms on the web through [plugins](http://keepass.info/plugins.html) - Export data to third-party mobile apps Dyslexia Action’s IT support technician likes KeePass. ## The explanation Why should you trust this advice as opposed to all the other advice you’ve been given? If you’re asking yourself this question, you are on the way to becoming a more secure computer user. It’s always important to seek confirmation and look at other opinions. This advice is based on the theory of a computer security expert [Steve Gibson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Gibson_(computer_programmer)) called [Password Haystacks](https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm). He described all the details and the theory and even included a little password testing tool. You can read the page or listen to a [37-minute podcast](http://media.grc.com/Padded-Passwords.mp3) where he explains it all. Gibson does not deny that random passwords are better than non-random ones. All he says that because of the way passwords are actually hacked, longer passwords don’t have to be as random. All I’ve done in this post is summarize the his thesis. I’ve included even [more points in this mindmap](http://www.xmind.net/m/wxqp/). --- ## About this item - Type: Journal article - Published: 2014 - Journal: Dyslexia Review 25(1), p. 23 - Authors: Dominik Lukeš Topics: [Dyslexia, readability and accessibility](https://dominiklukes.net/topics/dyslexia-and-accessibility). ## Cite this Lukeš, D. (2014). Dyslexia-friendly passwords. Dyslexia Review 25(1), p. 23. ```bibtex @article{lukes2014-dyslexia-friendly-passwords, author = {Dominik Lukeš}, title = {Dyslexia-friendly passwords}, year = {2014}, journal = {Dyslexia Review 25(1), p. 23} } ``` ## Related - [Bring Your Own Policy: Why Accessibility Standards Need to Be Contextually Sensitive](https://dominiklukes.net/research/bring-your-own-policy-why-accessibility) (Journal article · 2013) - [Load2Learn: Helping students to get the most out of lessons using the new free service](https://dominiklukes.net/research/load2learn-helping-students) (Journal article · 2013) - [Creating Bridges: The Role of Exploratory Design Research in an Intelligent Tutoring System Project](https://dominiklukes.net/research/creating-bridges-the-role-of-exploratory) (Journal article · 2016) - [‘Does He Take Sugar?’: The Risks of Standardising Easy-to-Read Language](https://dominiklukes.net/research/does-he-take-sugar-the-risks) (Journal article · 2012) - [Online Corpora for Literacy Teachers — Part I](https://dominiklukes.net/research/online-corpora-for-literacy-teachers-part) (Journal article · 2012) - [Online Corpora for Literacy Teachers — Part II](https://dominiklukes.net/research/online-corpora-for-literacy-teachers-part-2) (Journal article · 2012) Section: [Research](https://dominiklukes.net/research)