This has special resonance for me after having my computer hacked into,(by You-Know-Who, I'm sure).
Hopefully things are restored to how they should be.
After spending the morning watching the Russian orthodox service in Moscow I am left certain where the seat of Evil resides (if less certain about the seat of Good - it doesn't reside on this earth).
Snowden's
security tip: ‘Shift your thinking from passwords to passphrases’
It takes a computer less than a second to crack any eight-character password, according to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
RT,
11
April, 2015
He
gave some tips on how to make a better password to ‘Last Week
Tonight’ host John Oliver. The HBO show released a web video in
which the two men discussed password security ‒ footage that didn't
make into the episode that aired Sunday.
The
comedian met the former National Security Agency contractor in a
Moscow hotel opposite the KGB’s former headquarters in a room with
all windows covered. During the frank interview, Oliver and Snowden
discussed the NSA’s collection of Americans’
X-rated photos.
“The
bad news is they are still collecting everyone’s information,”
Snowden said, “including
your dick pics.”
But
an NSA release of a slew of 'dick pics' isn’t the only thing
Americans should be worried about when it comes to their privacy and
security, Snowden told Oliver in the web extra posted on Thursday.
“Bad
passwords are one of the easiest ways to compromise a system,”
Snowden told Oliver. “For
someone who has a very common, eight-character password, it can
literally take less than a second for a computer to go through the
possibilities and pull that password out.”
A
little extra from Sunday's interview. John Oliver and Edward Snowden
talk password security.
Oliver’s
password ‒ similar to the Druidia air shield security code on
‘Spaceballs’ ‒ is only five characters.
“That’s
really bad,”
Snowden told him.
Misspelling
a word isn’t a good idea either, as permutations of common words
are in the normal password dictionary, according to the NSA leaker.
President
Skroob shouldn’t change the combination on his luggage from
“1-2-3-4-5”
to “onetwothreefourfive,”
either ‒ an option Oliver hinted at.
“The
best advice here is to shift your thinking from passWORDs to
passPHRASES,”
Snowden recommended. “Think
about a common phrase that works for you. It’s too long to brute
force and also make them unlikely to be in the dictionary.”
The
discussion with Oliver isn’t the first time the NSA leaker has
suggested ways to increase privacy and security.
Speaking
remotely to attendees at
South by Southwest
(SXSW) in Austin, Texas last March, Snowden said that everyday people
need to rely on encryption to protect themselves from NSA spying.
“We
need to think about encryption not as this sort of arcane, black
art,”
Snowden told the audience at the annual SXSW Interactive conference.
“It’s
a basic protection.”
Screenshot
from facebook.com/LastWeekTonight
But
despite Snowden’s advice, Oliver said he’s not going to change
his password to “admiralalonzoghostpenis420YOLO”
or anything else.
“It
seems hard, even though I know it isn’t,”
Oliver told Snowden.
“You’re
killing me,”
the NSA leaker replied.
Perhaps
the biggest news of all, however, out of Snowden’s appearance on
Last Week Tonight is that he finds Margaret Thatcher 110 percent
sexy.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.