{"id":1360,"date":"2009-10-10T11:22:19","date_gmt":"2009-10-10T15:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=1360"},"modified":"2012-07-12T10:00:09","modified_gmt":"2012-07-12T15:00:09","slug":"passwords-and-the-average-user","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2009\/10\/10\/passwords-and-the-average-user\/","title":{"rendered":"Passwords and the average user"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this day of widely publicized panic about online security, it’s time we revisited the basics of password security. I’m sure that none of you reading this would ever have a less-than-ironclad routine for all your online activities:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Never ever<\/em> use the same password on multiple sites. Once they’ve grabbed for login for the MyLittlePony site, they’re into your bank account . . . or worse, your MyLittlePonyDoesDallas account.<\/li>\n
  2. Always use the maximum number of characters allowed . . . I know it’s a pain when a site allows 1024 characters, but your online security is paramount. I believe most health insurance now covers carpal tunnel treatment, so you’re golden.<\/li>\n
  3. Never include any word — in any human language — embedded within your password: this includes all the words in the Scrabble® dictionary for every known language. Can’t assume that the black hats speak English, y’know.<\/li>\n
  4. Always use both capital and lower-case letters and include at least a single digit and a non-letter character in every password. <\/li>\n

    Note<\/b>: Don’t try to be clever and use 1337speak<\/a>. The folks trying to crack your password all post on 4chan: you’re giving them a head-start. They dream in 1337.<\/p>\n

  5. Change your password regularly. Daily, if necessary. Even hourly if you share a computer with others.<\/li>\n
  6. Never, ever<\/em> write your password down. That’s the first thing they’ll look for when they break down your door and trash your crib.<\/li>\n
  7. Never, ever<\/em> re-use a password. Don’t pretend you haven’t done this one. We all used to do it, until site admins started checking that you hadn’t re-used an old password.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Of course, even the professionals don’t do all of this. Some of ’em don’t do any<\/em> of it. Do like the pros do: set all your passwords to “passw0rd”. Nobody ever guesses that.<\/p>\n

    For actual password advice that might be helpful, you can try this post on the Gmail Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In this day of widely publicized panic about online security, it’s time we revisited the basics of password security. I’m sure that none of you reading this would ever have a less-than-ironclad routine for all your online activities: Never ever use the same password on multiple sites. Once they’ve grabbed for login for the MyLittlePony […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,15],"tags":[109,58,463,836,334],"class_list":["post-1360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humour","category-technology","tag-computers","tag-internet","tag-parody","tag-passwords","tag-security"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-lW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1360"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16017,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions\/16017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}