What makes a password Strong?

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Okay, I'm going to start by busting the mythconception.

8 Characters, with 1 number, 1 lower case, 1 capital and 1 special character IS NOT SAFE!

The minimum password length you should have (system permitting) is 15 characters.  Length is better than complexity.

I'm going to insert the XKCD comic from a couple years ago that explains this.

Length is basically synonymous with complexity.  

Using a longer pass phrase (a rhyme or sentence or something you create from random dictionary words) is much more secure than any 8 character password. The above example is still valid, although more powerful computers can throw double the number of guesses per second so 265 years, but still.  I typically use 24-30 character passwords with a number and special character thrown in.  Sometimes even sentences with the spaces. 
For Example "This is a bad password!"  still has 40 bits of entropy and is about 125 years to brute force.  
"This is a really, really bad password!" has about 50 bits of entropy and is about 10,000 years to brute force.  

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