[Cryptography] Of writing down passwords

[Peter Gutmann]

Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> writes:

>I've been poking around my ADSL modem, as one does, and amongst its
>instructions (a Technicolor Gateway flogged as a Telstra T-Gate), I found the
>following, well, I dunno...
>
>I quote from The Book of Words, chapter "Protecting Access to the Technicolor
>Gateway", verse "Default password":
>
>  Choose a password that your[sic] can easily remember or write it down.
>
>Or write it down...  Umm, OK, and this is Australia's national carrier?

Finally a large organisation providing sensible password advice.

(Since you seem to disagree with it, what threat exactly is introduced by the
above?  Walk us through a scenario...).

Peter.