Notes

Experience so far with passwords:

One was a three word phrase (in full rockyou.txt)

Another one was the word "secret", or something or other (in common passwords/short password list)

Latest:

common word + 2 digits (another terrible one - top 1 mil pws, alleged gmail passwords, rockyou)

8 digits, first 6 prime numbers (this one is terrible - top 1 mil pws, alleged gmail, honeynet, md5decryptor, mil-dic, rockyou)

two names put together (in alleged gmail passwords)

Rules gathered from this:

Make good use of rockyou - it has EVERYTHING.
Certain numbers are more common, like 33. Certain words match certain patterns. Like, imnumber and a number
Numbers only - there are lots of numbers-only passwords that are patterns (most in rockyou, lots that are strange). These are basically THE lowest-hanging fruit.
Appended numbers - start with the easy ones. low-hanging fruit.

Strategies:

There are a lot of strategies that could be implemented to speed things up and make efficient use of things like common pin numbers, common number pws, common words, etc.
This was the intention behind some of the scripts I wrote, but those have turned out to be more of a scheduling/maintenance/record-keeping thing, than anything else. It's mainly a collection of dictionaries and rules, used in combination. Use these dictionaries, apply these rules.
Better approach would involve more stacked/layering. More autonomy.

Ideas

Better implementation:

To generate:

Use a series of plain English dictionaries, all lowercase
- Most common 1,000 words, most common 10,000 words
- Cities - sportsball - teams, buildings, boroughs, streets
- Most common 1,000 or 10,000 Spanish/French/German words
Words + 1 number
Words + 2 numbers
Words + 1 number + 1 symbol
Words + 2 numbers + 2 symbols
1 number + words
2 numbers + words
1 number + 1 symbol + words
2 numbers + 2 symbols + words
Letter + Words + ...

etc...