Posts by bittenbytailfly

Who's using 'password' as a password? TOO MANY OF YOU

Conflicting Reports

I was once the victim of a hacked PC, and someone made off with all my passwords (yes, I'd been lazily storing them in the browser, reusing them etc.) and so I created a little tool to generate strong password from more memorable phrases. I published this tool as a web site for anyone to use and according to Google Analytics I've seen a 20% rise in use over the last couple of months.

http://www.deadboltpasswordgenerator.com/

But then I guess a rise from eight to ten visitors per day may not be that significant ...

Acer lowballs on price with Celeron-powered C7 Chromebook

Fact Check

I have the Samsung 550, which has both a Celeron processor and an Ethernet port, so it's not so unusual.

People who hate Chromebooks are missing the point. If you're not a , graphic designer or high end gamer, there's little you can't do with one of these. If, like me, you fall into one of the above categories they make pretty nifty seconddary machines when you just want to check something, or handy for doing a bit of editing on documents (even offline nowadays), and are great for remote access to a more powerful desktop at home when you're out and about.

Also nice to see something other than an apple logo when in your favourite expensive coffee chain.

Fact check

I've got the 550 model, which has a Celeron and an Ethernet port.

It's a fantastic little device which makes for a perfect secondary machine.

Anonymous hack showed password re-use becoming endemic

I second that!

I've never understood the password vault model - much better to have a system that generates a strong password every time from something memorable. I use Deadbolt Password Manager (http://www.deadboltpasswordgenerator.com)

RockYou hack reveals easy-to-crack passwords

Users are lazy

I've had experience creating a system requiring a user to create a strong password, and also had problems with users that can't remember their 'overly-complicated passwords'.

The bottom line is unless you use a password generator (I use Deadbolt Password Generator) to create strong unique passwords for every site or a password safe of some kind (although I don't like storing ALL my passwords in one place) people will always have trouble remembering good passwords and will stick to using weak ones instead.