A Simple Look At Passwords

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

            I have a bad habit of being optimistic about humanity.

            Oh, in theory that’s a good thing. Let’s all think the best of people! Shouldn’t it be that way? Sure it should. Chamberlain thought the best of Hitler. So did Stalin, who was certain Hitler wouldn’t be dumb enough to invade Russia and stick around through winter. Come to think of it, just the word “Hitler” is a good hint that thinking the best of people might be a mistake.

            But this isn’t about mass-killing despots. This is about passwords.

            Hitler would have had a very secure password. He didn’t think the best of people.

            According to researchers, in 2013 internet users finally got smart, and stopped using “password” as their #1 password when dealing with computers and internet sites. Finally, some sanity!

            It dropped to number two.

            Number one is now “123456”. Yeah.

            It would be 12345, but so many sites require six digits.

            Another team of security researchers uncovered a cache of two million login credentials, and according to their research, “password” was far down in fourth position, after, “123456”, “123456789”, and “1234”.

            Next came “12345” and, yes, “12345678”.

            After that, in a sudden desire to be different, came: “admin”.

            And so my optimism is defeated.

           

( Yahoo Tech … excuse me, Yahoo! Tech points out that you can’t get much worse than “password”. It has no numbers, no capital letters, and no unusual symbols, and can be guessed pretty easily. It reminds me a lot of my first computer password, which if I recall correctly was “Mark”. No, worse: It was “mark”. )