A few years ago I wrote the Correct Horse Battery Staple password generator app, inspired by XKCD 936 (read it). It’s basic idea is that longer passwords consisting of words, are more memorable and stronger than more complex but shorter passwords.

I originally used the General Service List set of 2,284 words selected to be of the greatest “general service” to learners of English. Most criticism of the generator was about the small size of that list. I did try the Unix words file, but the phrases formed were to strange to remember; there’s a lot of odd words in that list.

Today I’ve updated it to use all the uncapitalised (to avoid names), whole words found in a few books from Project Gutenberg: The Thirty-Nine Steps, Three Men in a Boat, Ulysses, and War and Peace (English translation).

This has given us a pool of 26,626 words from which to choose, some of which are quite interesting (and some down to Captain Denisov’s speech impediment.)

Let me know what you think. I’ll make some more improvements later in the week.