Obtaining a Password
All password requests are handled through Passport, which can be accessed through http://passport.gatech.edu. First time students should click on 'I need to activate my account' at the bottom of the homepage in order to get their first password. You will need to know your GTID# (902....) and your GT username.
If you are trying to change your password, enter your old password into Passport's login screen, click on the 'change my password' option, and enter a new password. See the security tips below for information on how to create a secure password.
Password Dos:
- Something easy for you to remember.
- Something obscure; a deliberately misspelled term or an odd character in an otherwise familiar term, such as phnybon instead of funnybone. Or use a combination of two or more unrelated words.
- A phrase like "many colors" using only the consonants, e.g., mnYc0l0rz or a misspelled phrase, e.g., 2HotPeetzas or ItzAGurl.
- An acronym for your favorite saying, or a song you like e.g., GykoR-66 (Get your kicks on Route 66) or L!isn! (Live! It's Saturday Night!).
- An easily pronounced nonsense word, e.g., slaRooBey or krang-its.
- Two or more words separated by a non-alphabetic, non-numeric, or punctuation character, e.g., mac2%beav or cat,bear#
Password Dont's:
- Do not write your password down.
- Do not share your password with anyone. Not your secretary, not your parents... not even OIT.
- Avoid using people's names (especially your own), your GT Account username, and any word that can be found in a dictionary.
- Do not use your name in any form -- first, middle, last, maiden, spelled backwards, nickname or initials.
- Do not use your userid, or your userid spelled backwards.
- Do not use part of your userid or name.
- Do not use any common name, e.g., Linda, Joe.
- Do not use a password similar to your last password.
- Do not use the name of a close relative, friend, or pet.
- Do not use your phone or office number, address, birthday, or anniversary.
- Do not use acronyms, geographical or product names, and technical terms.
- Do not use any all-numeral passwords, e.g., your license-plate number, social-security number.
- Do not use names from popular culture, e.g., Spock, Sleepy.
- Do not use words that are either proceeded or followed by a digit, a punctuation mark, up arrow, or space.
- Do not use words or phrases with all the vowels or whitespaces deleted.
- Do not use any word that exactly matches a word in a dictionary, either forward, reversed, or pluralized -- or with some or all of the letters capitalized.
- Do not use words or phrases that do not mix upper and lower case, or do not mix letters or numbers, or do not mix letters and punctuation.
- Do not use words that match a dictionary word with any of the following translations:
a -> 2, a -> 4, e -> 3, h -> 4, i -> 1, l -> 1, o -> 0, s -> $, s -> 5, z -> 5