Passwords

I already received a couple of mails from one of the email systems I'm using insisting on a password change, because they expire after x days. Fair enough, I agree that one should change passwords every once in a while. Considering the other 47 passwords I have to memorise, I tried to slightly change my old one...
-> Password's too similar to your old one, please try again

Fair enough, would have been too easy, change it a bit more...
-> Password's too similar to your old one, please try again

Damn it! Let's just keep the last 2 letters then...
-> Password's too similar to your old one, please try again

-_-, maybe I can use the one I had used before the current one?
-> Password has been in use already!

I give up, I have to come up with a new one. Let me try the UNIX pwgen tool for that. This program generates passwords using numbers and lower and upper case letters such as Eetaish8, eeF0chah, eiHaiL9t or gooThai6. You can't find them in a dictionary (-> no dictionary attack!) but they are still quite memorable.

Ok, let's try one of them...

-> Password does not have enough symbols / lower upper case / numbers

Gosh! What are we protecting here? It's still about email, right?

Sigh, I will include two symbols like !, % or $. Of course, there's no way I can memorise this, so I have to write it down and stick a post-it next to my keyboard! Ok, kidding, but I think annoying systems like these make many people do exactly this!