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People who use Sony don't make very good passwords. "None of this is overly surprising, although it remains alarming. We know passwords are too short, too simple, too predictable and too much like the other ones the individual has created in other locations. The bit which did take me back a bit was the extent to which passwords conformed to very predictable patterns, namely only using alphanumeric character, being 10 characters or less and having a much better than average chance of being the same as other passwords the user has created on totally independent systems." [more inside]
posted by -->NMN.80.418 on Jun 7, 2011 - 142 comments

Security advisor Brian Krebs on the 'hacking' of web dating site Plenty of fish by Chris Russos.
posted by unliteral on Jan 31, 2011 - 73 comments

Oakland County man faces 5 years in prison for hacking his wife's email. So, is email snooping a crime?
posted by morganannie on Dec 28, 2010 - 85 comments

LastPass is the last password manager you'll ever need. Available on almost all common platforms, its easy to use, and free. [more inside]
posted by crunchland on Jul 11, 2010 - 73 comments

How I'd hack your password is a good introduction to how easy it is to compromise a weak password. What's a weak password? Anything among the top 20 passwords revealed among the thirty million users of RockYou is a good start ("123456" is #1). Or you can look at the 500 worst passwords as drawn by Kate Bingaman-Burt based on a list by security expert Mark Burnett. An analysis of password cracking software tells you what to avoid when trying to generate a strong password, but you can follow these techniques, or give up all together.
posted by blahblahblah on Mar 30, 2010 - 130 comments

Wikileaks cracks NATO's Master Narrative for Afghanistan
Wikileaks has cracked the encryption to a key document relating to the war in Afghanistan. The document, titled "NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative", details the "story" NATO representatives are to give to, and to avoid giving to, journalists. [more inside]
posted by Mwongozi on Feb 27, 2009 - 36 comments

Password Chart - Generate strong passwords.
posted by blue_beetle on Jul 20, 2008 - 72 comments

How to log in from an internet café without worrying about keyloggers. (.pdf)
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium on Nov 23, 2006 - 34 comments

Security, the TSA, and the No-Fly List You would think that our National Security apparatus would be like the TV series "24", with the most ingenious and sophisticated technology available. You would be wrong. Disclaimer: TSA is not an intelligent intelligence agency. Here's a blurb from the resume of the designer(Kenneth Mack) of the application the airline industry uses for *PDF* managing their employee data and the cross-checking them with the no-fly list:

- Sr. Developer: Developed a program [for Goddard Technologies] that uses the "No-Fly List" Excel spreadsheet, provided by the FAA and the database of badged employees to permute the name combinations. It takes into consideration multiple first and middle names, with Soundex and the various "initial" combinations. This program reduced the time for comparison from 3 days to 10 minutes.

The scary yet interesting part of all of this is that the No-Fly List is nothing more than a password-protected spreadsheet (see this PDF). One would guess our Government's geeks would know that it's a bad idea to send email attachments containing social security numbers and dates of birth, unencrypted, over the internets, even if they might be terrorists.
posted by rzklkng on Jul 15, 2005 - 30 comments

Write down your password. Bruce Schneier, Author of Applied Cryptography and founder of Counterpane security is urging people to write down their passwords.
posted by delmoi on Jun 21, 2005 - 68 comments

With its latest security update Microsoft has disabled the ability to pass username:password pairs in URLs. If you usually use this format for connecting to your site via either FTP or HTTP, it will no longer work after you install this update.
posted by johnnydark on Feb 4, 2004 - 34 comments