Short form: If you read nothing else, read this – update your password now! And when you update it, use a long password, made up of dictionary words (4 x 4 letter words would be a great place to start)
Long form: Your passwords (and other login information) are not safe! I’m not trying to panic you, but at least take notice. Recent data breaches at different websites (livingsocial, playstation network, Evernote) have resulted in the theft of user data.
Even if you yourself don’t have an account with one of these services, access to this data aids criminals by giving them a ready made list of real world passwords. By having this list they can speed up password cracking by an order of magnitude. Even “random” passwords truly aren’t secure from a brute force attack.
I’m not suggesting that you will be targeted and hacked any time in the near future, but it’s best to be safe and secure before something happens.
So what’s a good safe password? This XKCD strip sums up the numbers well. Length is key. Use four randomly chosen words of at least four characters in length. How you come by these words is up to you. Some good methods?
- Open a dictionary to four random pages and pick the first word on each page (What, you don’t have a dictionary? Shame!)
- Open a novel to a random page and take the first four words (If you don’t have a novel then we’re not talking to each other!)
- Make up a phrase
I’m not going to suggest that you make a unique password for each website and login you have – that way lies insanity. But try to have different passwords for the important stuff (your bank account or main email account.) Do avoid names and birth dates.
And while you’re resetting your passwords, make sure that your password recovery options are set correctly!
No, I’m not deleting my Facebook account.
I have however removed the plugin from this blog that automatically posted to Facebook whenever a new post was added. This plugin also (in theory) automatically pulled comments from Facebook and attached them at the bottom of the post and allowed you to use your Facebook ID when logging into the site.
In practice, it was buggy and annoying to keep working, so it’s gone.
In it’s place, I’ve activated the official WordPress plugin that does the same, as well as posting to twitter (so WordTwit is gone too). I’ve also removed the old mobile theme and activated the new integrated mobile theme. Looks better on my iPhone at least.
So this post is also a test – does it show up on Facebook? On Twitter? (For extra awesomeness, it’ll also auto publish at 5:55pm. Cuz hey, why not?)
I was inspired today to do some writing, so I wrote the snippet below. I’m not overly thrilled with it – the tone feels forced, and as it stands it’s mostly expository monologuing.
This is intended as the start if the Mage game I keep insisting that I’ll actually run at some point. Pester me and I’ll post some more background and setting information 
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I’m kinda proud that I managed to hang OS X on one of the work MacBooks, requiring a forced reboot to recover.
Let’s see what else I can add to this post…
We survived camping in a small tent on a self inflating air mattress for one night! Yeah, I’m not as young as I think I am. Pics from the annual anniversary trip to Riding Mountain coming… later?
Thinking about rewatching Star Wars? Got someone new to introduce to the fandom? Consider watching in the Machete Order!
Unstable Context is a new blog by my buddy Chris.
Good enough for now, I’m going to try to post some gaming related ramblings later/this weekend.
I’m a grocery!
Quality family time, past and present
{via}
Auntie Marion and Uncle Len were my great aunt and uncle on my mom’s side of the family. It’s through Uncle Len and the extended McEwen clan that Barry Ewing and I are distantly related. 12 years ago we lost Uncle Len to Alzheimers and Auntie Marion has been fading since. On April 14th, Auntie Marion passed away.
Growing up, I remember many many trips from Milton up to Auntie Marion and Uncle Len’s house in Cambridge. I have a lot of memories of their little house on on Selkirk with the amazing garden. Many many Sunday afternoons spent in the living room reading, playing with the turtle figurines or playing cards. Christmas was always special, but they loved to spoil Meagan and I at Easter – Easter eggs, sweets and a big chocolate bunny from Reid Chocolates. This Easter was extra hard, knowing that Auntie Marion’s health was failing.
Reflecting, Auntie Marion has filled a space in my life and my family left vacant when my Grandma Hankins passed away shortly after I was born. I know that Grandma Hankins could never be replaced and even though I don’t remember her she still has a presence in my life. But growing up family dinners were at Auntie Marion and Uncle Len’s. Holidays were celebrated with them and my memories are of their kitchen, their garden, the garage where Uncle Len painted the watercolors that are hung on the wall behind me as I type this.
I’m going to miss my Auntie Marion, but I will never forget her and I look forward to passing her memory down to the next generation of Potters.
Yeah, haven’t been posting much. Last few weeks have been kind of blah. I have some pictures/video/posts in the queue, I’ll try and get a few things tossed up by the weekend.
In the mean time, here’s a few links:
Life here in the geek household continues tonight, due to lack of foresight we are celebrating national grilled cheese day.
in mitten news, Kebukai is starting to explore the house. Akuma has been pretty good, but Hazumu… Not so much!
Yay 3 day weekend. Here’s what we got up to…
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Meta | Scott | 
April 28, 2013 12:50 pm | 
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