Why terrible? Because it looks like 26 random characters. But it's not random. It's the opposite of random. It's to anyone who knows the QWERTY layout.
And yet, it is also a of the keyboard's physical reality. If you trace the three rows from right to left, bottom to top, you end exactly where you started: at the letter q . The string begins with m (bottom row, rightmost) and ends with q (top row, leftmost). It is a journey across the entire keyboard. mnbvcxzlkjhgfdsapoiuytrewq definition
And now that you've read this feature, you will never be able to look at a keyboard without seeing it lurking there, waiting to be typed. Why terrible
In that sense, mnbvcxzlkjhgfdsapoiuytrewq is not nonsense. It is a of the modern typing interface—a map drawn by reversing the very paths our fingers are trained to take. It is awkward, beautiful, useless, and unforgettable. It's the opposite of random
Yet, amazingly, it passed many early password strength meters. Why? Because early meters checked for dictionary words, repetition, and common sequences like 123456 or qwerty . But mnbvcxzlkjhgfdsapoiuytrewq was too long and too obscure for those lists. It was a .
One famous anecdote from the 2009 "Password Predictability Study" (a real, if niche, academic paper) noted that among 10,000 leaked corporate passwords, exactly three users had variants of this string. One had added a 1 at the end. Another had capitalized the M . The third had used it as a WEP key for a home router. Try to pronounce mnbvcxzlkjhgfdsapoiuytrewq aloud. I dare you.
Try it. Just once. Your fingers will hate you. Your brain will thank you. End of feature.