Originally Posted By: chaosmagnet
... it behooves you to use a very long (20+ characters) unguessable key consisting of letters, numbers and symbols...

I really question the value of making passwords hard to remember with numbers, symbols, etc. ... this inevitably results in either people locked out of their own systems or storing the passwords in insecure locations (like a post-it note on their monitor).

As you identified, length is the real key to secure passwords.

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Victory awaits him who has everything in order — luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck. Roald Amundsen