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Joined: Mar 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
"password".
>The Most Common Password Is...
..."password."
That's right, the word most commonly chosen as a password-- which means you should never use it yourself as it is too easy to guess by people intent on violating your e-mail --is "password."
Britain's The Register reports this based on an admittedly unscientific, but extremely revealing, survey conducted by the folks who organized the InfoSecurity Europe conference. They walked up to random office workers at London's Waterloo Station and asked them for their password in exchange for a cheap pen. Fully 90 percent revealed their password. (Last year 65 percent fell for the bait.) And 12 percent of them said the password is "password."
Weird password facts:
The most popular category for a password was the person's own name, followed by their favorite sports team and date of birth. (Hint: If you see yourself here, immediately change your password!)
Men were slightly more likely to reveal their password than women. Fully 95 percent of men handed over the password when asked, compared with 85 percent of women.
Naughty, naughty:
75 percent said they knew their co-workers' passwords.
66 percent admitted they had given their password to a colleague.
66 percent said they use a single password for everything -- from the company computer to personal banking. (That makes them more vulnerable to financial fraud, personal data loss, or identity theft.)
Tips to protect your password:
Keep your passwords secret. Don't give them away in exchange for a cheap pen or anything else. And if you do reveal your password, change it!
Use a different password for everything.
Change your passwords every few months, perhaps at the start of each new season.
When choosing a password, do not choose a word that is in the dictionary or a string of numbers. Never use your name, your spouse's name, your children's names, your home address, or your birthday. These are too easy for hackers to guess.
When creating a password, mix and match letters and numbers. Example: KRT358A
If your password suddenly doesn't work, be suspicious! Someone may have gained access to your account.
When you log on in public, be sure no one is watching you type in your password.
And the most important password protection tip of all:
Never give your password to anyone who asks for it in an e-mail or Instant Message -- no matter how convincing or official the request may be.<
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
as part of my job (in the past!) i was responsible for helping security.. and posted on our local system, tips for easy to remember hard passwords..
one great trick it to take one of those word games that are sprung an 6th and 7th graders all the time..(you can sometimes find them in sunday comic sections too)
Fill in the blanks
88 K_ _ _ O_ a p _ _ _ _ k _ _ _ _ _ _ _
or
52 C _ _ _ _ I _ S _ _ _ _ _ _ D _ _ _
(the anwers being 88 keys on a piano keyboard/52 cards in standard deck -- and there are hundreds of others similar ones)
but 52cisd is a great password! as is
88koapa -- they are 'easy to remember, hard to crack'-- they seem like random number and letters.
(and they worked..our system required 6 characters, and at least on non-alpha character!)
On of my favorites, is S!itnol.. (not a current one obviously!) it is the first letters of Stop! In the Name of Love. -- which is an other great way to 'generate' passwords. and group of words or phrase that suits you lends its self-- ET,B! (et tu, brutes!) is only 5 characters, and 6 or more is better.. (and i know latin did not use comma's, but its the idea!)
these are also great for pin numbers.. (just use the telephone pad/number letter groups for letters)
so if you are using your birthday, or your eldest child's birthday, or your wedding aniversay, or the last 4 numbers of your SS# (these are also common passwords!) STOP
memory palaces are also great for passwords.. look around your desk, and focus on an object.. then think about it..
if you recieved it as gift, from your grand(child/mother/etc) for graduation/birthday/special event) one object can generate lots of differnt passwords. (-- directly or indirectly.. maybe grandmother is really NANA H.. or a graduation present might lead to 98TDPS (PS 98, The David Porter School-(NY city schools have both numbers and names) the first school you attended.. there is no obvious connection to photo in a frame to 98TDPS- but when you come back from vacation, and are trying to remember your passwords.. a memory palace helps!
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Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 742 |
In the easy to remember, hard to crack line, a friend setup his aunt with the password di11yd@11y - a nice mix of characters that still spell out an easily remembered word.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
of_troy,
Yours is exactly the technique I use.
The sysadmins tell me my pw is great.
k
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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an easily remembered word.
To you, maybe. To me it's not even recognizable.
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
an easily remembered word.
To you, maybe. To me it's not even recognizable.
dillydally--
but some systems(networks) won't let you use a password that has already assigned characters in a password, so @ is out; its used in email, and / is out; (file system command, and * is out, too.. depending on your system, and network other characters may be off limits too.
you can use dr bill's common mistake, and miss home row.. so instead of having your fingers on ASDF and JKL:, offset them to WERTand IOP[, and then just type something simple, like hello (obviously, this only words if you are touch typist, not a hunt and peck one.)
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Great stuff, Whit and Helen! Thanks.
My favorite example of a password comes from the TV SiFi story "Babylon 5" when "Garibaldi" - the tough guy head of security - has to tell his password in order to reboot the computer : Garibaldi's password ? Peekaboo. As he says in the film "Who'd think of it?"
A chum of mine uses Letmein which is fun!
As for me, I find Hawaiian words useful.
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Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 67
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 67 |
A friend of mine used to have 'omerta' for a password!
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
> Use a different password for everything.
Yeah sure. It's bad enough now using one of my three four favourite passwords. I have a thing about deleting cookies (probably paranoid, I don't like them sending me things that I don't want) and once managed to delete a load of useful ones - it took me ages to order my shopping, stationery and read the New York Times online - I must have been through a bad patch. My trick is using a mixture of place names in a language known to Maverick and numbers that seem to make sense at the time - and there's the rub - I must have gone through a bad patch in word/letter combinations at some point.
Isn't there software around that can capture all keystrokes? I assume (and hope) that it cannot be used remotely. it wouldn't be too difficult to work the passwords out as they would usually follow some kind of ID.
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
re:it wouldn't be too difficult to work the passwords out as they would usually follow some kind of ID.
well that is one advantage of the newer windows OS's they require you to press 'cont +alt +del" (contol/alt/delete) to get to log in screen.. and since cont/alt/delete can not be done remotely, (the combo is used because it is in effect a hardware switch, not a software one) no one can get to your log in remotely..
and i try to have all my passwords saved, and run a good encryption software.. then they are a bit safer.. (not that i care if someone logs into the NY times under my name!(which they would have to figure out, plus my password.) memory palaces are best for multiple passwords, or use the same password, and change it every three months.. (that takes disipline.)
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