Reeser's Blog

Password Security

By, Joe Purcell
Staff Writer
05-12-2011

Perhaps the most overlooked feature of security is the password. Let's consider an analogy: your information, whether it be your home computer or Facebook, is like treasure. Only you have access to that treasure because it's protected by a password, a secret. The only way someone can steal your treasure is if they know how to get to it, that is, if they know your secret password.

Let's say for example, you have money hidden under your matress. Anyone wanting to steal from you would easily guess to look there. In the same way, hackers would easily guess "123456" for your password. Which, by the way, was the password of almost 300,000 users at RockYou in 2009, according to a report by Imperva. Choosing a strong password isn't easy, but surely one could come up with a better password than that!

Ok, so passwords are our first line of defense. There are four main characteristics of a strong password:

1.Length - the more characters the better; with each additional character (if you are considering uppercase, lowercase, numerals, and special characters) the complexity of cracking the password goes up by a multiple of 94, so 2 characters has 8,836 possibilities, but 3 has 830,584!

2.Diversity - the more types of characters the better; use numbers, special characters, uppercase, lowercase, but don't use dictionary words, backwards words, or repeated characters

3.Associativity - hackers can socially engineer your password, so the more obvious the association between you and the password is, the more likely it can be guessed; for instance, don't use your name or anything that obviously identifies you

4.Duration - the longer your password stays the same, the more chances a hacker has at attempting to crack it; duration of 3 months is ideal

Ok, but how can one create a strong password that can be remembered? The best I've found is summed up by an article by Microsoft which starts with a sentence and modifies it to become a password impossible to guess. Here are the steps, with a few modifications:

1.Choose a sentence - Choose a sentence you can remember with about 10 words, maybe a quote or start going through lines of your favorite poem or book (you'll need a new sentence every 3 months). I'll use the quote: "Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don't let anybody use it, and get a new one every six months." (it's longer than 10 words, but I can remember it--that's the key)

2.Extract characters from the sentence - The simplest is to choose the first letter of each word, maybe convert number words to numbers and words like "at" and "and" to @ and &, so mine is: "Typlyt.Dlaui&gan1e6m."

3.Add complexity - Microsoft suggests making the letters in the first half of it upper case, but a great alternative is to use l33t speak, so make T's into 7's, a's into @'s, and such, here's a complete list of l33t conversions. This can also be done in the process of step 2 as I did, so since mine is already complex--it has uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and special characters--I can skip this step.

So, I have a password, "Typlyt.Dlaui&gan1e6m.", that is 21 characters long, which is crazy, but I can remember it. The first few times you will have to quote it in your head and remember which characters you've changed, especially the l33t characters. But, it's much more memorable than something arbitrary and it's nearly impossible to crack. However, we still have some issues.

This Should Be Posted In Every School

Wednesday, 26 May 2010 14:55 | Last Updated on Wednesday, 26 May 2010 18:26 | Written by Richard Reeser |

THIS SHOULD BE POSTED IN EVERY SCHOOL

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this!

Author Bill Gates

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teaching has created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life.. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs..

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

If you agree, pass it on.
If you can read this -Thank a teacher!
If you can read this in English thank a soldier!!!

Thriving in a Down Economy

Thursday, 24 September 2009 21:57 | Last Updated on Thursday, 24 September 2009 22:10 | Written by Richard Reeser |

There are many challenges we all face in a down economy, the most important of which is how to stay in business. Above and beyond keeping the doors open, we are faced with the challenge of how to actually thrive in a slow economy. It’s not always simple and the answer definitely varies based on your situation, your industry, and your team. But from our experience as an interactive agency in the Web design and development space, there is a common thread that has helped us maintain an edge. Flexibility.

Overall, we’ve been thriving in a slower economy by doing the following:

Being flexible and adjusting costs, processes, and guidelines to work with clients in various situations
Using extra time that isn’t spent on client work to pursue additional business ventures, ideas, and projects that will propel us in the future
Working additional hours on projects (in some cases with smaller budgets) to ensure the highest quality product; quality over quantity
Learning new skills and further developing existing ones (for instance, we’ve been thoroughly expanding our jQuery expertise)
Expanding, not contracting (which is a common reaction to the market), sales and advertising; act, don’t re-act

While the economy is changing, being flexible and open to change will give you the opportunity to not only stay in business, but to be successful in tough times. It is working for us, and we believe it can work for you.

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