You use your network password to login to your Nicholas School account and to access your home directory on the network. When choosing a password, choose a password that is at least 8 characters long. Do not choose a proper name or a single word that can be found in a dictionary - even a non-English dictionary - as your password.

For instance, if you have a pet named "Snowball," a poor password, even though it's eight characters long, would be:

snowball

or even:

sn0wb@ll

A better password would be based on the phrase, "I have a cat, I named her Snowball:"

ih@c,inhSB

Nicholas School IT will periodically scan user passwords to test their strength. If your password is weak, you will be required to change it.

Duke's Office of Information Technology has some good advice on choosing a password.

http://www.security.duke.edu/password.html