Today is Computer Security Day. Change your passwords. Or not.
Hey, it was this or National Meth Awareness Day. Which, come to think of it, might have been better thanks to South Dakota’s new anti-meth campaign. At least I think it’s anti-meth. Some of those people look really nice . . .
I cannot understand how an entire government paid millions for this campaign and nobody ever said “Uh, wait . . .” But it makes me laugh, so points for that.
Very wholesome, in the UK, it would be a lot grimmer.
Though for me the best ad for not taking drugs, was a documentary about a boy band. They interviewed one of the members and his mother. He was in his early 20s, you could see the hard living just from the lines on his face, while in contrast, his mother who was much older looked so much better. Her skin had the nice glow that comes from healthy living.
Passwords for the short of memory -famous quotes. Not the whole thing, just 1st (or 2nd or..) letter of each word, maybe a set pattern for switching in capital letters or symbols. Then if you’ve forgot it’s exact shape you can look it up. For instance, to log in to the computer in a programing class I’m not taking anymore I could have used
Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.
-Donald Knuth
OROTONuoteoi2@ for instance
forget, and “knuth quote mind” will bring it right up, caps/lower case break at the comma, obligatory symbol goes in the usual place… Might have to try a few times but at least I wasn’t carrying around a piece of paper. Or, you know, had lost said paper, or left it at home.
I note that I overheard a classmate tell another that he watched people typing in their passwords. He didn’t say he used them but I now consider the fact that I might have to try a couple times to be a feature.
XKCD has a great strip on picking a password https://xkcd.com/936/ Unfortunately, lots of programmers coded their logins to prevent you from doing this.
Also, it is smart to use a different password for every login. This is why I have a password manager. If I ever get locked out of it, I’ll be hurting. 😕
Happy small business Saturday here in the US. I’m planning on going to my local quilt shop. 😊
I suspect the whole point of the ad campaign is to get people to realize that someone they know who looks normal could be on meth…..
My work computer changed my password for me on Tuesday which I suspect is a bad thing. Waiting to hear from my tech guys .
Watching the news this morning, apparently it is National Buy Nothing day in Canada. Who knew. Unfortunately I have to buy groceries. And the sun is shining.
I still don’t get the meth ads. I thought at first that they meant, “Meth is a huge concern, but I’m/we’re involved in solving the problem.” Yet I can’t figure out how this composite figure of South Dakota is solving the meth problem.
Now, I suppose it means, “I’m on meth which you wouldn’t suspect.” Therefore, come to South Dakota where we all do meth.
I don’t think the campaign is achieving its intent. Possibly the ad director is on meth?
I remember, “This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. This is your brain on drugs with an English muffin and hollandaise sauce.”
Had to love that ad…as an editor, it hit me as too funny! Enjoy the holiday weekend, everyone!
Yes, it looks like an ad for Meth to me. Hey, we’re all on meth and we’re having a great time.
That meth ad reminds me of the brilliant slogan someone (no doubt overpaid) came up with for my town recently. I live in a place in upstate NY called Oneonta. The new slogan is, “Oneonta, we’re ONTA something.” Well, someone was onta something when they came up with that…
I think it’s a typo. They meant it to read Math: I’m on it. It’s to encourage people to keep their adding and subtracting skills sharp.
At work, we are required to change passwords at least every six months or less, have to use nine characters including a numeral, capital, uncial and special character. We have different passwords for computer log-in (two different computer systems), time card management, Maintenance management system, training, and so on.
I used an Excel spreadsheet and the random function to make a batch of 12 character passwords. I printed them out on a sheet of business cards, then delete the file. The idea was to have only one list of totally random passwords that yes, would be written and carried in my wallet, but…
I think I might have used two of them out of a hundred.
We are required at work to change passwords often. I’ve given up in one way–I use cartoon characters from my childhood, or old addresses, or book titles.