Memory and Passwords

I used to be the person who only used one password. It was created way back in the day for when I needed at least 6 characters for a Runescape account (which I think I used 3 times total). It was exactly 6 characters, and when I created my first passwords for my email and forums, it was always the same one. At some point they required that I needed passwords longer than 8 characters. I came up with one that was 13 characters long, and that became my new default.

Now I'm a little smarter. I will shun modesty and say that I'm very good and memorizing strings of letters and numbers. So I have no problem going to WolframAlpha and typing in "16 character password" when I need to create a new account. I still have some of my old passwords around on stuff that doesn't matter at all (mostly forums that I rarely or never visit anymore).

Recently I've seen a few posts about password length. It started with someone at work noticing this article (which I personally find incredibly interesting):
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/133067-unbreakable-crypto-store-a-30-character-password-in-your-brains-subconscious-memory
Now there is also the xkcd approach, which can be found here: http://xkcd.com/936/.

So I got to thinking (again shunning modesty): I memorized 50 digits of pi in less than 5 minutes to win a T-shirt. I was in 3rd grade then. I can solve a Rubik's cube blindfolded in about 3 minutes or so, memorizing and double checking 16-20 piece movements in around 90 seconds. I can surely handle some obscenely long password, right?

The answer is no. I can remember bits and pieces of some of them but not enough for anything useful to get done. So I took the time and memorized my new email password and came up with the best way of storing passwords: replying to the password change email with my new username and password. I guess if someone gets into my email all my information is compromised, but I trust Google. And if someone breaks through a password with more than 300 bits of entropy, I wouldn't be very mad. I would congratulate them. That's some dedication.

Pretty useless post, but it is the best way of storing passwords for recalling later. Just search the name of the site that the password is from and look for your reply.