Securing Your Accounts With Well-Crafted Passwords
In the past I've never really paid much attention to security issues when it comes to user names and passwords. Frankly I figured it was all a lot of overblown hype. This led to an unfortunate incident that involved my website being attacked, apparently by a skillful youth with a propensity for mischief. The main security flaw with my website was probably the simple fact that the username and password were exactly the same. Granted I did realize that this wasn't highly intelligent but I didn't have the power to change it myself, and I didn't think it really mattered enough to bother about it. Having an identical username and password is a massive "no-no" in computer security. Your username and password should not even be related along the same line of thought. A username of "Dragon" and a password of "Fire" is not a secure combination. For maximum security, passwords should not be cohesive words or phrases and should not be too obviously related to something like your birthday or the birthday of someone close to you. Personal information is one of the first things used when people attempt to break passwords. Having a password of "Password" is indeed humorous and ironic but it is not in the least bit secure. A "brute force" password hacking technique involves using certain rules and guidelines to take a guess at possible passwords and generally works through a dictionary of sorts, trying combinations of possible words and common characters. Your best bet at creating a secure password is to pick a random collection of letters, numbers, and symbols, including varying case changes (in a password the letter "a" is not the same as the letter "A", so alternating at random between upper and lower case will increase the difficulty encountered in cracking your password). Selecting a sequence of characters on the keyboard (such as "asdf" or, worse, "1234") definitely does not create a secure, random password. Having symbols in your password is an easy way to greatly increase security. These are the special characters accessed by holding the "Shift" key and pressing one of the numbers at the top of the keyboard. If you want to truly expand your arsenal of special characters, try holding down the "alt" key and pressing a combination of numbers on the num pad (the rectangular collection of numbers on the right hand side of most keyboards) then release "alt". For example, holding "alt" and pressing numbers, 1 then 6 then 8 and releasing "alt" will give the character "¿". Most combinations of 3 numbers will enter a different symbol into your password. This may make it a little harder to enter your password but it makes it a lot harder for anyone else to crack it. To make passwords easier to remember you can use something original, like the name of your favorite character in a book (personal information that other people won't know). Then add some numbers to it, perhaps use the "Leet speak" (check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet for exact definition) method of changing letters to numbers and generally mix things up so that to you it seems coherent and memorable but to an automated pattern recognizer it seems random. For example, "jAm35_5m1Th¿" ("James Smith") is actually surprisingly secure. In this case the password's meaning is obvious to a human reader but it will take a lot of work for them to divine the password without prior knowledge (unless you've used your name or a close relative/friend's name which, as we've already discussed, is not a good idea). For additional security you should not use the one user name and password for every account that you have. If you do and someone manages to get hold of your details for one site they pretty much have the run of your digital life. It is not particularly vital to have perfect passwords for less important accounts (e.g. web based email from Hotmail, forums you visit etc.). These sites can quite happily be accessed using the same password. However, bank accounts, work email etc. should be made as secure as possible. Hopefully a few of these tips will assist you in making your online activities more secure. Keep these guidelines in mind, change your password on a semi regular basis, and with any luck you'll be able to avoid the hacking menace that befell me. Daniel Punch
M6.Net Web Helpers
http://www.m6.net
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Games To Encourage Thinking Skills
There is no doubt about it, using computer games is a great way to encourage children to expand their realm of thinking. Your options for entertaining your child may seem numbered. Many people allow their children to spend quite a bit of time in front of the television. But, what good does that do? If you want them to learn something while they are zoned out, you are completely lost. But, if you flip on the computer, download a great game, you may actually be able to encourage them to learn more and you will encourage good thinking skills as well.
Free Pocket PC Casino Game
Casino Gambling Wherever You Like
Reviving Old Computer Games
Remember the good old days of gaming, when there were only 5 pixels in the protagonist and your imagination could turn them into a heroic figure of Schwarzenegger proportions? When the enemies and the heroes were distinguished by colour and you only needed one button on the joystick? Well times have changed and technology has moved on. Pulling my old Commodore 64 or Atari out of the back of the cupboard and setting them up often takes more time than the nostalgic pang lasts. I've also noticed that some of my old disks are starting to age and become corrupted. Enter the Internet.
A Parents Guide to Online Gaming, Part 1
The internet touches every aspect of your children's lives. Where you might look up an unknown word in a dictionary, your kids are more likely to use dictionary.com. Where you use the telephone, they use instant messenger. An even greater difference can be found in how they play games. Where the games of their parent's generation may have involved a board, cards, or at their most sophisticated a console system, the games your children play on the net can be far more complex. They mine gold, spread empires, fight dragons and aliens alone or with tens, hundreds, even thousands of their fellow gamers. All of this makes for a confusing mish mash of names, places, jargon and lingo that can leave you with no idea what your kids are actually doing and a vague feeling of uneasiness that some part of it might not be good for them.
Aerial Blimp Refueling of UAVs
Aerial refueling from blimps might be easier than we think. Currently we use C-130s to fuel Boeing Attack helicopters and Large Cargo Type helicopters, which can be a dangerous operation. The C-130 must slow down to very slow speeds and the helicopters are flying at high rates of speed. The problems occur when there is turbulence and the fully loaded with fuel C-130 is in the middle of a transfer of fuel. There are ways to slow down a C-130 and reduce it's turbulent airflows:
Counter Strike, The Beginner of Broad Band PC Gaming
This is the world of 21st century, the century of technologies. Every thing is fast now a days and as far as the Computers and games are concerned, they are at the top of all. Every one these days like playing games and some of them love it. Well few years ago PC gaming was not so advance and usually was single user based and if any one wanted to play with any other player then one must have an extra input or any compatible playing device .
Rent Games Online for the Kids
It's risky business allowing your children to play games online. I know that may sound funny but I have a good argument to back up my opinion. If you continue reading I will share it with you.
Solitaire RULES Half Life DROOLS
It's a popularity contest.
Review - Sony PSP
I'm fairly certain there are folks at Nintendo feeling some serious self-loathing right about now. You see, back in the mid-90's Nintendo contracted Sony to develop a CD-ROM drive for the Super Nintendo. As the project progressed, a number of factors (one of them being the spectacular failure of the Sega CD and its' followup the 32X) led Nintendo to can the project. Sony was left holding the bag, with a CD-based gaming system but no one to sell it to.
Next Generation Games Consoles - Separating Fact from Fiction
Over the next 18 months the 3 giants of the Games Console world will be battling it out in stores and homes across Europe, America and Asia for the title of the world greatest Games Console. The stakes are high in this multi billion dollar business, not just for the console sales but for the games sales that go along side it. Since the launch announcements of all 3 consoles in May at the E3 conference in LA. The 3 combatants have been vying for the millions of column inches that have been written about the Next Generation Consoles. Each Press release has been hotly followed by another press release from a rival company so much so that extracting the facts from all the hype has been nearly impossible. At the launch press conferences Microsoft boasted that the Xbox 360 could do 9-billion-dot-product-operations per second. Sony then came out and said that the PS3 could do 51-billion-dot-product-operations per second however Sony had combined the CPU and GPU performance numbers whilst Microsoft only reported its CPU performance number. When the consumer is up against this sort of publicity blizzard it is best not to believe a thing until you can check the facts for yourself.
So what do we know?
Well for the Xbox 360 and the Sony Playstation 3 we have lots of lists of hardware and specifications which actually don't mean very much in isolation. The main thing that need concern us are the processor speeds and they are both stated as being 3.2 GHz The only time that the hardware will mean anything is when we get to run them side by side and then if experience is anything to go by the difference in real life performance won't be noticeable and will just be used by the press departments to battle it out.
Despite all the press releases and information that has been spewing out of the headquarters of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo we actually know very few facts.
We know that in all likelihood the Xbox 360 will be on the shelves in time for Christmas, Amazon are currently taking pre-delivery orders and are quoting a release date of November 28th. The prices have been set at $299 for the Core System and $399 for the Xbox 360, the difference being that the Core system doesn't have the external hard drive required to save games and download new content or the headset required to play online on Xbox Live! Why 2 prices? and why a version that hasn't got everything included? This looks very much like a product of the marketing department trying to get a product at the historically important sub $300 level more than anything and this may backfire on them in the long run.
Next to hit the Shelves will be Sony's Playstation 3 supposedly in spring next year once again we have very few facts to go on, Sony are continually releasing press releases and mentioning in public that the price will be high and the figure of $500 has been mentioned but many industry experts suspect that this is a ploy so that when they release it at $300 or $350 it will look like a bargain. The final console to hit the shelves will be the Nintendo Revolution some time late in 2006 and 2007. Since the "launch" at E3 this year very little has been said about it by Nintendo. It seems at this time the "Launch" was just a way to deflect some of the publicity away from Microsoft and Sony.
One fact is certain, If Microsoft do get the Xbox 360 onto the shelves before Christmas it will be this year's biggest selling Christmas gift. So until you get your hands on one of the consoles?.Question everything!
Ingredients For A Great Game
There are millions of computer games out there on the market, how do you make your game best selling? What features have to be included? I have taken a look on previously best sellers trying to determine what makes a great game.
Full Version Pocket PC Games For Free
Play Games Instead
You Dont Have To Be Rich To Be A PC Gamer
There is a common misconception that you have to take out a second mortgage on your house if you want to get a computer that will run all of the latest and greatest games. I don't know who started the rumor that you need to spend $3000 to get a gaming computer. The truth is, if you are smart about it, you can easily afford to get a high-end gaming computer. Here are a few simple rules to follow to put a gaming computer within reach.
Rule 1. Never buy the newest technology.
I know we all want to be the guy or girl with the newest toy, but you will never be able to keep up with technology. That top-of-the-line graphics card that came out today will be old news in just a couple of months and a new one will be released that is "so much better". Guess what happens to the price of the new graphics card you just broke the bank on? It dropped by about 50%. If you would have just been patient you could have purchased it for a fraction of the cost.
Rule 2. You only have to keep up with the software.
Rule 2 closely correlates to Rule 1. It usually takes software companies two years, give or take, to develop a new game. During this time there are new technology breakthroughs. If they went back and re-engineered the game every time a new processor or a new graphics card came out, the game would never be released. Another important factor is that they want the game to be available to the largest number of consumers. For this reason they do their best to make sure the game can be played on a wide variety of systems. Check out the system requirements for some of the more popular games. A 1.8GHz processor and a Direct X 9 compatible graphics card will run just about everything out there. Granted you might have to turn some of the settings down but it will run it.
Once you reach a certain point the added performance of the new technology is noticeable. For example, the Athlon 64 chip has been out for more than a year, yet there are very few applications that require a 64 bit processor. If you check out benchmarks on the new PCI Express graphics cards you will see that they are running games at 300+ frames per second. When you watch a movie it runs at roughly 60 frames per second. A game will still run relatively smoothly at 20 frames per second. Basically anything over 60 frames per second likely will not be perceived while playing the game. You will only see the difference in your benchmark programs.
Rule 3. Build Your Own Computer
This is important for two reasons. First, you can be assured of better quality components when you pick everything out on your own. When you buy an off-the-shelf system, chances are you are getting a big name CPU and everything else is most likely generic. Do you know what motherboard, power supply, or type of RAM you are getting? This of course, is my personal opinion, I'm not saying every manufacturer builds sub standard machines, but from experience I've had greater longevity from the computers I've built myself. I've also noticed that you will often get little system memory, unless you pay a great deal more for it. You will often get 256MB of RAM with these base system. Windows XP will run, but likely with problems, on 256MB of RAM. It seems to be the most stable with 512MB or more. Other areas they cut costs is by using integrated graphics chips. This saves them having to put in a graphics card, but you will pay the price for it when you try to play a game.
The second reason to build your own computer is that you can cut your costs by stealing parts from your old computer. You can save hundreds of dollars by reusing the drives, case, monitor, keyboard and mouse. Plus, you don't have to worry about calling a technician to install RAM or a new graphics card because you'll already know how to do it.
How Much Can You Build A Computer For?
I just checked out some pricing and you can build a very nice midrange gaming computer for around $600-$700 using an AMD Athlon 64 3000+. If you can steal a DVD drive from your old computer and maybe the case, you can bring the cost down even more. You can build a high-end machine for under $1000. The internet is full of useful websites about how to build computers. Look around and you'll find all the information you need. There are several books published about the topic as well. If you follow these simple rules and do a little research you can enjoy all of the best computer games even if you are on a shoestring budget.
Theories Behind Magic Trinkets in Video Game and Virtual Reality
In Gaming we deal between Simulation, Augmented Reality, Fantasy and Virtual Reality. The best fantasy has some reality basis behind it. Trun your mind on for a second and let me explain.
SMS Gaming - Text Paging Games that can be Played by Anyone
Using the Physical World as a Game Board: This is not a Kinky game! SMS stands for Short Message Service.
Cloud Laser Art
A new art form in the future will be CLA. Cloud Laser Art. People can go to a place where there are laser units, sit out side in a small shielded area and draw on the clouds. It would be fun and a great form of self expression, which would make humans very happy. We know that mankind likes to use the natural environment for self expression from cave drawings to rock piles near road ways and graffiti on rock formations. The idea of drawing on clouds is much better, because the cloud eventually dissolves and like an etch-a-sketch is ready to start over. This will be similar to what happens after Ice Carvings, Ice Sculpting is alive and well in North America.
We have all heard of Sand Castle building and contests, which go on around the world.
Create Computer Games - Get Started on Creating Your Own Virtual Worlds
I've always loved video games, ever since I first played them on a friend's computer in the afternoon after elementary school. There's something almost magical about the fact that we can move images around and interact with virtual worlds, a living fantasy presented for us to interact with however we please. I've also always wanted to make games myself but, until recently, didn't have the technical knowledge to do so. Now, I'm a second year software engineering student, so if I weren't able to code a game without too many dramas there'd be something drastically wrong. But what about the common person: the person for whom the term 'memory leak' conjures up images of their grandfather, 'pipeline' is where the water flows, and 'blitting' is unheard of? Well, everyone can get in on the game creation process, and you don't even need to learn 'real' programming to do so.
UAV GeoBat Balloon Radar Decoy Strategies
A GeoBat small UAV might be the perfect platform for an enemy radar decoy and disruption balloon concept. A swarm of GeoBat UAVs could be hand launched and sent into enemy territory and travel using tiny amounts of fuel. Please read this report first:
Increasing Rates of Climb in Fighter Aircraft Like the New Joint force Strike Fighter
We know from studying aircraft like the F-8 Crusader, in which my dad had the fortunate to fly while in the US Navy stationed in Puerto Rico, that when the wind was tilted upward on the aircraft that it had a lower takeoff speed and much higher initial rates of climb. At which point the wing came back to position and it was a pencil shaped rocket with wings. Now then let us take the newest discoveries in wind tunnels about life, weight, thrust and drag. We know that the reletive wind pushing on the bottom of the wings forces the aircraft up.
Blast From The Past - Retro Games Are Hot Again
Miss the brainlessly simple and extremely addictive games from the 80s? Find out which game developers feel the same. Dozens of teams are creating new games based on the old classics. Here are just a few of them.
|
