Why are some passwords restricted?
As the number of possible characters used in a password increases its potential security, why is it that some passwods explicitly forbid the use of any character other than numbers and letters? It's just plain stupid. I've also come across restrictions such as no more than 2 identical characters together - which D0g...................... would certainly fail. I'm not going to divulge my password strategy (I'm over 55!) but I have a suggestion:
Pick an irrational number such as Pi, the square root of 2, etc., as such numbers go on forever. Then pick a start digit position and a substitution system such as 1=A, 2=B etc. Finally pick a substitution pattern such as letter-letter-number and, although your password may not be easy to remember, it will be easy to recalculate.
Example. I use Pi as my base number: 3.1415926535897932384626433832795
My password starts at the 6th digit (9). Using the substitution system and pattern as above, and choosing, say 9 characters, my password would be: ib6ec5hi7
By using digit pairs and more sophisticated substitution, this approach can make passwords that are very difficult to crack.
