For the basic you need a calculator with a decimal to hex function. Your OS should have one built in (scientific mode), many calculator's do to. For advanced you'll need special hashing software, suggestions for it can be found below.
Now that we have the software we need. You'll need an 8 digit (minimum) number that you won't forget. Guess what numbers fit the bill perfectly. Dates. All date's can be expressed in 8 digits, but they require a year. The date we'll use (for example) is Linux's Birthday. August 25, 1991 (I recommend something more personal like your anniversary or birthday).
So we are going to write down the date we picked for the password (note we aren't done yet).
something like
Linux BDayDate's can be
formatted in several ways, Just make sure to remember the numeric format you use. For our example we'll use the
ISO 8601 standard. Which leaves our example date in format, YYYYMMDD, looking like 19910825.
So let's make a note of the format (to throw people off use a diff format say DDMMYYYY).
Linux Bday ISOwhatever you do make sure YOU understand your note, but that it isn't easily understandable by OTHERS.
alright... now we're going to take our number and make it hex. So open your calculator enter 19910825, then use the convert to hex function and you should have this 12FD0A9 (if you aren't using our example you may have a different 'number', or it may not be displayed exactly like this, display's vary between calculators). This is your first basic password. you can use it as is, or you can make it a bit more secure by using one of the
hexadecimal notations. example: 0x12FD0A9. You can add a word or funny characters to either side of it to make it stronger too, just make sure to note anything you add to it.
Due to a
Rainbow Table database you should make sure your password is at least 8 characters but I would recommend no less than 9.
But your hex number is less than 9 and what do the programs you listed have to do with this?good point... let's make something a bit more crypto and less predictable.
Take the same date and plug it in to your hash creator, I'm going to use an md5sum for my first example.
if you put 19910825 into md5sum you get 6f9822851dfc6c1045c6fef827e5d729 (for you nix people enter the number like this 'echo -n "19910825" | md5sum'
on the cli otherwise you might end up with newline issues because different operating systems use different newlines).
so lets say you need an 12 character password you could just use the first 12 characters of your hash, example: 6f9822851dfc if you need an 8, example: 6f982285 ,etc etc.
if a stupid 'cracker' or black hat hacker get his hands on your actual password he might think he hasn't decrypted it fully because it'll look like a hash or memory error. want to throw people off even more just remember you aren't using the first 8 but the first 8 after the first 2 example 9822851d.
Or use a different has like sha1 or sha512.
Ultimately you could make your note to yourself like this
Sha1LinuxBDayISO to a non IT person this will look like a random password as is.
Also the cryptographic hashes take words too. So you could do your name. Caleb into an md5sum is
9ced73b8525de1db8e232ad575baa9dd
but it's different if I use caleb.
2f0154d7db348840676529dd72f1c034
if you always enter them the same you will always get the same result back. I guarantee after a couple days typing your new password you won't need to have it written down. If you work at a place that requires things like monthly changes.. just put the date you changed it on in to create the hash. Just make sure no one knows but the number/word(s) you used and the hash you used or they will be able to duplicate your password. Of course you're smart and you added somthing to it right? like a symbol (!@#$%^*{}|:"<>?[]\;',./) will all work find if the auth methods allow it.
have fun never having a hard time creating passwords again.
