Passwords - Please Be Smart! (Gawker vs. 4chan)

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

I'm so internet old and stupid that up until now I used the same password for just about everything, and it was the worst most obvious password a person could use. I never really worried about identity theft. Spent yesterday changing all my shit.
Now watch me get hijacked.

[Josh]

I'm not interesting enough to hack, I think.

[K3V]

For the lazy: http://www.didigetgawkered.com/

[GohanX]

Josh's password is YourMom===D

[mollipen]

I'm not interesting enough to hack, I think.

I'd hack your long password all day long. <3

[Frogacuda]

I use unique/more secure passwords for important shit like email, facebook, etc, but for shit like forums, torrent trackers, and other bullshit, I use the same password, because who gives a fuck. If my tnl account gets hacled and they use it to get into my demonoid or something, it's not exactly putting me at risk for identity theft, you know?

[Yoshi]

Between this thread and our discussion in Westlake, shidoshi, I have come up with a system by which all of my passwords are unique and yet able to be remembered. I am definitely better off because of you bringing this up. Thank you!

[mollipen]

So, I've not been a fan of the "keep all your passwords stored here" solution for a while now, and here's an example why!

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...word-data.html

LastPass Says Hackers May Have Stolen Password Data

May 5 (Bloomberg) -- LastPass, a company that offers to safeguard and simplify managing subscribers’ online passwords, said hackers may have broken into its database and stolen information on as many as 1.25 million accounts.

The company’s service allows customers to use one password with enhanced security features to access multiple password- protected accounts for online banking, Internet shopping, and other secure sites. The Vienna, Virginia-based company posted a message on its website late yesterday alerting customers to the breach in its security.

Jeremy Conway, a researcher for the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, based cyber-security company NitroSecurity Inc., said the intrusion risks giving the hackers access to millions of different bank accounts, e-commerce sites and sensitive corporate networks.

“This could be the nastiest password hack in history,” Conway said. “They’ve disclosed just enough so that customers can make all sorts of wild assumptions about how big the problem may be.”

The scope of the losses will depend on how successful the intruders have been at penetrating the company’s network.

The attack on LastPass follows a series of break-ins that have left companies informing customers sensitive data may have been lost. Early last month, millions of customer e-mail addresses were stolen from the computers of Alliance Data System Corp.’s Epsilon Data Management LLC, a Dallas-based provider of marketing services.

Cyber Intruder

Two weeks later, Sony Corp. reported that a cyber intruder stole personal information belonging to 77 million customers of its PlayStation Network.

Joe Siegrist, chief executive officer of Marvasol Inc., which does business as LastPass, said in an e-mail message today that he’s urging customers “not to panic” and noted several measures the company is taking to limit the risk. The company is asking customers to re-set their master passwords, Siegrist said.

Companies like LastPass have grown in popularity in the face of growing internet-based fraud from software that steals passwords stored on individual computers.

“I’ve told people to go use LastPass,” Conway said. “The company will have to take several specific measures following this incident before I’ll feel like I can do that again.”

Now, the question is still out on how big of a deal - if it's a deal at all - this will be. The situation is still this: you're storing your passwords somewhere, especially outside of your home, and you have no control over that information. Somebody breaks in, maybe all they get is a database of encrypted passwords. But maybe they don't. Maybe they get the information in a way that the passwords are usable.

So, against I say: please read my opening post in this thread, and consider the security of the passwords that you rely on on a daily basis. Coming up with a system that keeps you secure, yet does not rely on any sort of database that can be compromised, is not only possible, but easy with the right tools. The security breaches over the past few weeks show that nobody is fully protected from this kind of stuff.

If you're concerned about your digital security at all - and you should be, but I won't force you to be - at least give some thought to what it could mean if one of your passwords was stolen. What other information could be gained about you, and what areas do you need to better protect?

[Josh]

Better watch out or hackers will steal your megahertz.