Disclaimer: I use a password manager, so please don’t direct your comments at me.
So I know this person that says they don’t use a password manager because they have a better system like… I’m gonna give an example:
Lets say, a person loves Star Wars, and their favorite character is Yoda. The favorite Their favorite phrase is from The Good Place “This is the Bad Place!”. And their favorite date is 1969 July 20th (first landing on moon).
So here:
Star Wars Yoda = SWYd
“This is the Bad Place!” = ThIThBaPl!
1969 July 20 —> 69 07 20
So they have this “core” password = SWydThIThBaPl!690720
Then for each website, they add the website’s first and last 2 characters of the name to the front of the password…
So, “Lemmy Forum” = leum
Add this to the beginning of the “core” password it becomes:
leumSWydThIThBaPl!690720
For Protomail Email it’s: prilSWydThIThBaPl!690720
For Amazon Shopping it’s: amngSWydThIThBaPl!690720
Get the idea?
The person says that, since the beginning of the password is unique, its “unhackable”, and that the attacker would need like 3 samples of the password to figure out their system.
Is this person’s “password system” actually secure?
I do agree that password managers are generally more secure than memorable passwords, however, they also pose he Achilles heel of a system, as one password unlocks all. That is why 2FA tops everything, as even with a weak password, as a hacker would need to crack an OTP to gain access, or convince the one holding the 2nd device to unlock the account for them.
However I do want to contest the claim that all user-friendly passwords are inherently unsafe. The Electronic Frontier Foundation did a Deep Dive on randomly generated passphrases and shows how secure the system is by entropy alone.