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Old June 25th 11, 04:15 PM posted to rec.pets.cats.anecdotes,rec.pets.cats.health+behav,alt.pets.cats,rec.pets.cats.rescue
nik Simpson
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Posts: 230
Default Must Discuss the Kitties' Welfair


There's a dangerous assumption here, i.e. that choosing a relatively
simple password that is highly personal to you, is safe because nobody
would guess it unless they knew you and your personal information.
Folks, that's not how hackers break passwords, they don't go your login
and try to guess your password. They hack the website completely (a-la
Sony) grab the master password file & username list, and feed that data
to one or more computers to simply brute force decrypt the password
file, they don't need to know anything about you at all.

I've decided to use Lastpass and different long completely random
passwords for each website that I couldn't begin to remember. The only
password I have to remember is my Lastpass password, they handle the
rest. Granted, this relies on two things:

1. Nobody can guess my Lastpass password
2. Lastpass's security and encryption is good enough to prevent the
master password data falling into the wrong hands and being decrytped in
a useful amount of time.

So far it's working, but if you bank online or use credit cards online,
the watchword is vigilance ;-)

BTW, are you wondering if one of the recent hacks (Sony, Citicard, etc)
has compromised your password or email address? If not, you probably
should be, so check out this tool:

https://shouldichangemypassword.com/

It's legit and simply searches the data that has been leaked from sites
like Sony to see if your email address is in leaked data.
--
Nik Simpson