passport

n 1: any authorization to pass or go somewhere; "the pass to

visit had a strict time limit" [syn: {pass}]

2: a document issued by a country to a citizen allowing that

person to travel abroad and re-enter the home country

3: any quality or characteristic that gains a person acceptance

or admission; "his wealth was not a passport into the

exclusive circles of society"

password

An arbitrary string of characters chosen by a user or {system

administrator} and used to authenticate the user when he

attempts to log on in order to prevent unauthorised access to

his account.

A favourite activity among unimaginative {computer nerd}s and

{cracker}s is writing programs which attempt to discover

passwords by using lists of commonly chosen passwords such as

people's names (spelled forwards or backwards). It is

recommended that to defeat such methods passwords use a

mixture of upper and lower case letters or digits and avoid

proper names and real words. If you have trouble remembering

random strings of characters, make up an acronym like

"ihGr8trmP" ("I have great trouble remembering my password").

(1994-10-27)