6 Password generators

 

Are you weary of the prompts? You know when some website asks you to apply a password to your account? “Ensure that it has at least one uppercase letter, one number, a symbol, and some hieroglyphics.” Or, “Here’s a suggested password that you’re incapable of typing, let alone committing to memory.” It’s exasperating.

I hope you recognize the importance of applying a password to a digital account. And I trust that you’re familiar with the common rules: don’t use easily guessed passwords. Don’t use any words or terms easily associated with you. Don’t set the same password for every account. These admonishments are tedious but important.

Setting a solid password is a must these days. As a C programmer, you can bolster your weary password arsenal by:

  • Understanding password strategy
  • Creating basic, jumble passwords
  • Ensuring the password has the required characters
  • Taking a detour in the world of Mad Libs
  • Using random words to build passwords

At its core, of course, a password is nothing more than a string. Authentication is a case-sensitive, character-by-character comparison of the input password with a password stored in an encrypted database. True, the process is more complex than this; I assume at some point the process involves a squirrel on a treadmill. Still, once decrypted, it’s that good old comparison that unlocks the digital door. The point of setting a good password is to create a key no one else knows about or can even guess.

6.1 Password strategies

6.1.1 Avoiding basic and useless passwords

6.1.2 Adding password complexity

6.1.3 Applying the word strategy

6.2 The complex password jumble

6.2.1 Building a silly random password program

6.2.2 Adding conditions to the password program

6.2.3 Improving upon the password

6.3 Words in passwords

6.3.1 Generating random words, Mad Libs style

6.3.2 Building a random word password generator