For those who know me, there is one computer related subject on which I don't hold back my views. That subject is related to personal computer security: your passwords. In this day and age, people have usernames and passwords to somewhere between 10 and 25 web sites. Some of us, have many many more. What I'm about to write should make you think twice about how you come up with passwords for any future accounts you might create.
Let me ask you a question.. Is there a web site that, if someone were to know your username and password to it, would be detrimental to your financial well-being if that person were to get in and "do damage". I think everyone who reads blog would answer yes. So far, you're thinking, "What does this have to do with computers?" Be patient. I'll get to it.
So, we all agree that there are some sites that we really need to secure with a good password. So you've probably thought of a good password for the site I just asked you about, right? A good password is one longer than 6 characters (the longer the better), and doesn't include any real words. And for goodness sake, don't use any part of your name or your kids names, or your pets names. Another criteria for a good password is to have numbers and letters as well. Oh, and a combination of upper-case and lower-case letters would be even better. Some sites allow what they call "special characters" which are characters like exclamation points, question marks, etc. If you can, throw those in the mix too.
Getting on with my point... In contrast, there are a lot of sites which you might think aren't as important, or don't have anything really worth the password. So you might have made a so-so password for this kind of site, am I right? Oh.. Wait. Don't tell me. Please don't tell me you have the SAME password for both of those sites.
Why does it matter? Well, here's why it would matter. A "lesser" site might lead you to a cavalier way of thinking about the password for that "lesser" site. Even though the password is the same as the highly secure site, you think of it as a different password categorically, even to the point of where you might write that password down on a piece of paper and stick it to your monitor, or where you might type that password in an email to someone, or maybe in a conversation with someone you might actually TELL someone your password. See where I am going with this?
You might be thinking, "So what?" They have the password to that ONE site. So what? Human behavior tells us that people are generally lazy and there is a very high possibility that if you have someone's password for one site, you just might have the password for every other site that person visits. Now there's a problem!
Let me tell you what I do. I use software that helps me keep passwords for all of my web site accounts. The reason for this is because I can't possibly remember all of those strange passwords I have created for those accounts. I have this software on my smartphone and on my computer. This software is also backed up so it won't get lost. You have quite a few choices in the software you can use on the market. I happen to use eWallet by Illiumsoft. I find it very useful and have been happy with using it on all of my smartphones from the Palm days to my present Android Droid X.
An important feature you must have in the software you use is that it must be password secured itself. Basically, I only have to remember one password. And what if someone gets my phone, can't they get into all of my passwords? That's a valid question. Another important feature of this software is that the data must be secured on your hard drive with encryption. Meaning that if I'm not logged in to the software, and someone got my phone, it would be "very difficult" to get at the passwords. Notice I say, "very difficult" and not "impossible".
I must apologize for not blogging about a computer-ish subject today, but I think it's a foundational subject on which I can build on my future blabberings.
No comments:
Post a Comment