# Your Password ain't Squat!



## MA-Caver (Aug 9, 2008)

Interesting article about the invalidity of passwords in this day and age. Hackers are able to ascertain what our entry words/numbers are with a few simple tricks. Yet people still try to use very easy to ferret out passwords for their most valuable possession... their Identity.  



> Digital Domain
> *  Goodbye, Passwords. You Arent a Good Defense.  *
> 
> 
> ...


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## terryl965 (Aug 9, 2008)

Well I keep mine simple because I am not smart enough to remember. What is my name again.:erg:


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## mrhnau (Aug 9, 2008)

What drives me nuts are the requirements for passwords. it seems everyone does it different, so you simply can't use the same password more than once. I've got about 6 I use and its annoying as heck to keep up with them!


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## jks9199 (Aug 9, 2008)

mrhnau said:


> What drives me nuts are the requirements for passwords. it seems everyone does it different, so you simply can't use the same password more than once. I've got about 6 I use and its annoying as heck to keep up with them!


Tell me about it...

Work alone, I've got passwords for 2 "professional" email systems, a Hotmail account that I created before my employer provided email, 4 different passwords for some information sharing resources (maybe more... I keep thinking of another one everytime I pause), plus a password for the teletype system...  And, of course, none of them share the same username.  And that's not counting PINs and access codes for buildings and gates.  Or my false-front identities on social networking sites like MySpace...

Or "personal" stuff like MT.


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## Bob Hubbard (Aug 9, 2008)

Ask any old school Trekkie what their pin is.  More than half will answer "1701".


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## arnisador (Aug 9, 2008)

Every mathematician uses the first n digits of pi or e for their PIN. It's pathetic.


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## stickarts (Aug 10, 2008)

Thanks for sharing! What gets crazy for me is the number of passwords I now have to try and remember. Between all of the applications and programs at work, stuff at home, and the Karate school, it gets insane!


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## Rich Parsons (Aug 10, 2008)

I took some cryptology classes in college. 

I studied up on it a little afterwards as well. 

The issue is that no matter what your password is given time and desire people can break any password. The issue is to make it so hard they will not try. 

The problem is that people need to remember them. If there was a standard as mentioned before that was common then people could remember a single password that could be useful for security. 

But instead then people have to remember them so they go for easy or personal references. I know I was able to break many passwords of my friends and even instructors (* as part of an areed upon test *) by using what Iknew about them. At work there were so many systems with different passwords and different rules that most of the people I knew had a file on their laptop called passwords or in their planner was written down all their passowrds. 

So, the point of making it more complicated has actually made the systems more insecure as people have to break the written rules to be able to remember them. 

It is sad that there cannot be a commonsense approach to this.


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## arnisador (Aug 10, 2008)

Rich Parsons said:


> So, the point of making it more complicated has actually made the systems more insecure as people have to break the written rules to be able to remember them.



Yes, indeed! The picture in the first post here makes this point exactly. Every site has its own rules, so you need a different password (must have a punctuation character at this site, can't have a punctuation character at that site), which forces people to write down there passwords or use obvious passwords, suitably modified for each site. We need a single standard.

Just making a 5 second delay between login attempts goes a long way toward security.


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## MA-Caver (Aug 10, 2008)

Rich Parsons said:


> I took some cryptology classes in college.
> 
> I studied up on it a little afterwards as well.
> 
> ...


Well to lesser sites (games, discussion boards, etc.) I use the names of my favorite caves and some of them are backwards spelled. Since I've been to roughly 50 caves in my lifetime (so far) trying to figure out WHICH one I chose for that particular site... well seeing how it's going to do nothing more than play the same games that I play or get into THIS site and others ... :idunno: I'm not worried in too much about security. 
As far as my personal accounts... at the moment I don't have any... so no worries there. 
But if/when I do then I use a password and write it down in my wallet and keep a copy of it under my mouse pad... so no worries there for me.


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## Bob Hubbard (Aug 10, 2008)

When I was an network admin, I took a copy of the user/password list and tossed it against one of the popular brute force crackers.  95% of the passwords cracked in under a few minutes. Only mine and the master server account lasted longer. They were 32 character long.  Average was 6.

This will be an interesting read. 
How long will your password stand up
http://www.lockdown.co.uk/?pg=combi&s=articles


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## mrhnau (Aug 10, 2008)

I've toyed with those timed password generators. Rather than a static password, they get renewed periodically. In the case of the system I was working with, every 15 seconds. You get a device that is synchronized with the server and you can check your updated password.

Then, there is always biometrics...


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