Ok, so I installed gpg4win last week and over the weekend, I have forgotten my passphrase. This has happened to me twice. Does everyone else simply remember them. I would have written it down, but it seemed like that would negate the point of having a passphrase. What are some other solutions that people have used to prevent themselves from forgetting their passphrase?
A passphrase is simply a fancier term for password (but it also points out that as a phrase, it can, and should, be longer than a typical pass “word”)
If you ever read any books on developing memory skills, you’ll find that there are several “aids” that may help – mnemonics, “peg” words, non-sensical words, etc.
ask a network engineer what “A Purple Snake Takes No Dead Prisoners” means, or a musician why “Every Good Boy Does Fine”, and you’ll likely get a chuckle and an explanation – these nonsense words or phrases helps “remind” them of something entirely different, but they are so “out” of context that you’ll actually remember them easier than the real words involved. (which makes it easy to transfer these to the words you “forgot”)
Although perhaps a little overused, you might find a password/phrase of TABPSSLCPOOASSB to work well, just bring to mind the slogan used for big-mac’s about 20 years ago… [two all beef patties…]
“peg” words are words used to represent certain other words, letters, or numbers (usually numbers), which are great for phone numbers and 20+ digit “passphrases” The way this works is you associate a particular word for each number from 0 thru 9, then to memorize a long string of digits, you envision each word that corresponds to the digits you are memorizing and somehow transmuting or interacting with the next word/digit. The more animated/humorous/non-sensical the transition from one word to the next, the easier it is to remember.
Of course, if you decide to use a 10-digit number, write it down “as if” it were a phone number and memorize it that way (in fact, you could probably get away with filing this in a rolodex as if it were someone’s phone number, and nobody would be the wiser, of course, then you have to remember what NAME you filed it under, and don’t make it too obvious like “Kay Frasier” – you might end up with a nosy girlfriend who wonders why you’re always asking her to look up that number in your phone book…)
[read that name out loud and drop the “r” if you didn’t get it…]