1. Pass The Message Game Phrases

We've discussed how using passphrases as passwords can boost your security, but if you've chosen a phrase used in every-day speech, you're not doing yourself—or your data—any favors. According to a new Cambridge study, a common phrase, like, say, 'outofthepark,' is only marginally more secure than a dictionary word, and anyone looking to crack your password already knows to try common phrases along with common words. If you prefer passphrases, here's how to make them more secure.

Pass it on game. Goal: Practice listening skills. To play the game Pass It On, stand or sit in a circle. One person begins the game by thinking of a short phrase, then whispering the phrase into the ear of the person standing or sitting beside him/her. That person then whispers it to the next person and so on.

Xkcd Password Generator Creates Long, Easy-to-Remember Passwords

Web comic xkcd notes that 'through 20 years of effort, we've successfully trained…

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Why Common Passphrases Aren't As Secure As You Think

The reason that many password systems won't allow you to choose dictionary words as you passwords—or at least require you to add numbers, capitals, or special characters to those words—is because the first thing a hacker will do to try and guess a password is try every word in the dictionary to see if they can get in. Even swapping out 'i' for '1' or 'e' for '3' often isn't enough—the fact that those tricks have been around for as long as they have means that those common substitutions are easily added to your dictionary list and included with the brute force attack. The goal of encouraging passphrases instead is to create credentials that are entirely nonsensical to a password cracking utility, but memorable to the human who needs to access a given system every day. Photo by Francis Storr.

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The trouble though is that so many people, when they embrace passphrases, use common phrases from books, popular movies, memorable quotes, sports teams, or other proper nouns that are easily guessed. A group of researchers from Cambridge University recently published a study (PDF link) where they found that using a dictionary of these common phrases allowed them to crack open about 8,000 passphrases in Amazon's old PayPhrase system. They conclude that passphrases as a password system ultimately provide less then 30 bits of security, which they note is too weak to withstand most online attacks. Ars Technica explains what this means in plain terms:

The '30 bits of security' means the chances of a single guess cracking a four-word passphrase would be one in 2^30. What's more, the two-word phrases cracked in the study provided just 2^20.8 (or 20,656/0.0113) bits of security. Another way of expressing the same finding is that a dictionary of slightly less than 21,000 phrases is enough to guess the login credentials that slightly more than 1 percent of people in the real world will use.

Admittedly, 1 percent of phrases is a very small number, but it's still cause for concern, and drives home the point: any security system, even if it's well built and sufficiently complex, can easily fall prey to user-introduced patterns. In the end, the user—and their password—is almost always the weakest link.

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How to Improve Your Passphrases

This doesn't mean that all hope is lost for passphrases, or that you should give up on them and go back to standard strong passwords. Honestly, if you can combine the two, you should—the strength of a strong password with letters, numbers, varying case, and special characters is improved significantly when strung together as a phrase. The key is to pick a phrase that's easy for you to remember, but not, for example, your favorite sports team, or the name of your city and state strung together, or the make and model of your car. Yes, it diminishes the ease of memorization, but it vastly improves your security.

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The study explicitly points out that 'multi-word phrases, if chosen naively according to natural language tendencies, are not as effective at mitigated guessing attacks as alternate choices, such as choosing 2 random words or choosing a personal name at random.' So, in order to boost your passphrase security, you need to pick words that matter to you, but don't matter to anyone else. For example, 'NissanAltima' may not be a dictionary word, but it's a proper noun that's easily guessed. Instead, you might try 'My03AltimaIsBlue.'

When we discussed The XKCD passphrase generator, we pointed out another more secure method worth repeating. If you want to use your favorite lyric from a song, grab the first couple of characters from the words in your favorite line, instead of stringing the whole lyric together. We proposed that a Jackson 5 lover might extract a password from the lyrics 'Oh baby give me one more chance to show you that I love you' and come up with 'obgmomctsytily,' which is significantly more secure.

The XKCD Password Generator itself is a robust tool to generate passwords, mostly because the words it strings together are random—they have no meaning behind them, and would be difficult to break in a dictionary attack, and even harder if you mix case and special characters. You could also take it up a notch and use the shift-to-right method for your passwords, which really makes them unintelligible.

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Shift Your Fingers One Key to the Right for Easy-to-Remember but Awesome Passwords

You're constantly told how easy it would be to hack your weak passwords, but complicated…

Finally, once you've done all of this, and built a great passphrase that's difficult to crack and hard to break, do yourself a favor and plug it into a password management system like LastPass, KeePass, or 1Password, so you can use different strong passphrases for every service you use, and one memorable one to get into your password vault.

Do you use passphrases, or stick to strong passwords isntead? Maybe you mix them up? Share your password tips and tricks in the comments below.

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Title image by XKCD.

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About Communication

ESL Games

The telephone game is a very entertaining and enjoying social game usually played within a group of people. The game consists of a set of words or message that is passed along a line of people. Each person is required to whisper the message to the next person in line exactly as he or she has heard it.

The original message at the start of the game is usually not the same message that is communicated at the end of the game. It usually ends up being a very funny message that sparks the laughter among the group due that the message has gone through various retellings that have changed the meaning and form of the original idea.

How is the Telephone Line Game Played?

The game can be played by people of all ages, although it´s best suited for children as a party game. The game can include a great number of people, but it is best not include more than 20 people and not less than 5 people, as the amusement may come to a halt if more or less players are included.

The object of the game is to pass along a whispered message to another person and with this in mind; someone is assigned the task of giving the message to the first person in the game. The message usually includes something as; ¨Mario´s mother gave him permission to spend time with his friends.¨

The Telephone Game

Someone (teacher, judge) whispers the message to the first `person in her/his ears (Mario´s mother gave him permission to spend time with his friends); the first person whispers what she/he hear to the second person in line; the second person whispers what he/she heard to the third person and so on until the last person hears the message.

How Many People Can Play the Telephone Line Game?

Pass The Message Game Phrases

In the row, there can be from 5 to 20 players, as the game may result more dynamic and less boring than if there are only 3 people or more than 20. Depending on how many people are playing the game, they should line up as close to each other so that the immediate neighbor can hear what he or she has been whispered to the ear, but not the other players.

Good Communication

How Does the Message Change in the Telephone Game?

The original message suffers a series of transformations as it is passed along the line of people. This usually occurs because the message can only be said once. Several factors may come into play for the changing of the message; for example, players may be anxious, impatient, not listening to what they´re being told or someone may deliberately alter the message.

When the messaged has been passed along the row of players and to the last player in line, the original and final messages are compared. The original message is completely changed from its original meaning; for example, in the phrase, ¨Mario´s mother gave him permission to spend time with his friends, ¨ may have totally changed to, ¨Marianne´s brother has the mission of talking to his friends.¨

Good Communication Skills

• Accepting
• Using silence
• Giving recognition
• Giving information
• Seeking information
• Encouraging descriptions

ESL Classroom Activities

Sometimes, the original message changes totally, so that it becomes unrecognizable. This game is usually played among second language learners as it stimulates good pronunciation.

In order for good communication to take place both the speaker and listener must be actively engaged. The following are some tips that anyone can use in order to establish good communication.

The Telephone Game

Other Names for the Telephone Game

Other names for the telephone game include the broken telephone, whisper down the alley, the secret message, operator, grapevine and pass the message. It is also known as Chinese whispers in allusion to the difficulty that most cultures have to understand the Chinese language.

• This game is really fun and can be used to illustrate so many lessons in communication. Thanks for sharing!

• This is fun. I have done it a few times in child hood and once as an adult breaking the ice for a job. Great article.

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