You must protect your personal information. This is the only way to survive, much less thrive, in the digital age.

"Last year, Ars Technica gave three experts a 16,000-entry encrypted password file, and asked them to break as many as possible. The winner got 90% of them, the loser 62% -- in a few hours. If there's any new news, it's that this kind of thing is getting easier faster than people think."   Bruce Schneier, security guru.

Passwords are a pain, but there is an approach that is both manageable and bearable. We learned it from the ultimate guru in cyber-security and cryptography expert Bruce Schneier. Take phrases, our favorite quotes, anything that can be called upon as a framework, like this;

• Jmpn_JaK*Fla$h! - could be remembered by recalling the Rolling Stones song.

• Inspirational words - "IWILL@sZtd" as "I will seize this day."

• It's a fact that we need to teach our kids a technique for passwords that they can live with - This little piggy went to market might become "tlpWENT2m".

• Ltime@go-inag~faaa! = Long time ago in a galaxy not far away at all.

• uTVM,TPw55:utvm,tpwstillsecure = Until this very moment, these passwords were still secure.