“Special characters” do not make passwords secure

All too often I’m presented with the following “rules” when setting a password for a website or service: –

Let’s make this clear now … NONE of these “properties” make a password secure. Passwords do not need to contain obscure special characters. A wonderful Password Strength article on xkcd covers this succinctly, their cartoon (that’s free to redistribute) says it all: –

Summary

Don’t be fooled by the computer – it’s trying to trick you into using passwords you cannot remember and it can easily guess. Use letters, and just make the password long. Nothing else really matters. Unfortunately too many website have fallen into the same trap and force you to use passwords you cannot remember.