So, this made me think – the latest cartoon from XKCD.com.  I urge everyone to be using strong passwords for their email, their FTP information, their wordpress installation – etc. etc.  And I normally go with the approach outlined in the first row of images below – choose a common enough word, throw in a couple of common substitutions, some capitals, some punctuation – make it about 12 characters long, and job done.  Right?  Wrong.

As neatly illustrated with this cartoon, you’d be better off with 4 random common words.  D’oh.

Now, y’know, don’t change all your passwords to ‘correct-horse-battery-staple’, but you get the picture.