How to Change your Genome Password

• Login to genome.stanford.edu (aka fafner.stanford.edu)
• At the Unix prompt (>) type:
  

  > passwd
  Current password:  [enter your current password]
  New password (? for help):  [enter your new password, see suggestions below]
  New password (again):  [enter your new password again]
  

• It takes about an hour for your new password to be available on all genome servers.

How to Choose your Password

To protect everyone in our network community, it's important that proper computer security be observed. The most important thing you can do is maintain a strong password on all your personal and shared computer accounts on all our networked computer systems.

The goal when choosing a password is to make it as difficult as possible to guess what you've chosen. A proper password leaves no alternative but a brute-force search (trying every possible combination of letters, numbers, and punctuation.) Even with a machine that could try one million passwords per second, such a search would require years to complete.

Here's a summary of Dos and Don'ts for choosing passwords culled from several Web sites:

• Do use at least six characters but preferably eight characters. (Your password can be as long as you want, but only the first eight characters are significant on many systems.)
• Do use a mix of lowercase and uppercase letters.
• Do use digits and punctuation marks, including shifted numbers.
• Do use a password that's easy to remember. (So you don't have to write it down.)
• Do use a password that you can type quickly, without having to look at the keyboard. (This makes it harder for someone to learn your password while watching over your shoulder.)
• Do change your password on a regular basis. (Especially on those systems that don't automatically force you to do so.)
• Don't use a word contained in any (English or foreign) dictionary or atlas.
• Don't use your login name in any form (as-is, reversed, capitalized, etc.).
• Don't use your first or last name in any form or a family member's name.
• Don't use information easily obtained about you. (This includes license plate numbers, telephone numbers, social security numbers, brand of your automobile, name of your street, etc.)
• Don't use a password of all digits, or all the same letter.
• Don't give your password to anyone and don't EMail your password to anyone.
• Don't write your password down. (But especially never write down your password anywhere near your computer.)
• Don't use a password that you're using at another site. (Don't use the same password for the Internet service provider account you access from home in case one of the sites is compromised.)
• Don't use eight-bit characters which some systems can't handle.
• Don't keep using the password you were given when your account was created.
• Don't use any example passwords found in documents discussing passwords.

Suggestions on how to choose:

1. Choose a line or two from a song or poem, and use the first letter of each word. For example, 'In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn a stately pleasure dome decree' becomes 'IXdKKaspdd'.
2. Put together an acronym that's special to you, like 'Notfsw' (None of this fancy stuff works).
3. Alternate between one consonant and one or two vowels, up to eight characters. This provides nonsense words that are usually pronounceable, and thus easily remembered. Examples include: routboo, quadpop, and so on.
4. Choose two short words and concatenate them together with a punctuation character between them. For example: dog;rain, book+mug, kid?goat, robot4my.

A good password is easy to remember and hard to guess!

If you don't know how to change your password on any of the systems you use, or if you have problems with a password, send mail to the systems group or call 5-3125.

Last updated 06/20/03
Questions, comments, additions and/or suggestions? Mail the webmaster.