Spudtater's Journal

I am Mrs. Sarah Welsh, an English woman who is suffering from cancerous ailment. I am married to Sir Jim Welsh who also is an Englishman though dead now. My husband worked with the British Railways for over two decade before the cold hand of death took him away on the 23rd of July 2003 at about 2:00AM. Our marriage lasted for over a decade without any fruit of the womb. My husband died after a protracted illness. My husband and I made a vow to uplift the down-trodden and the less-privileged individuals within the United Kingdom, Europe, North and South America, Africa and the rest of the globe as he had passion for persons who cannot help themselves due to physical disability or financial predicament. I can adduce this to the fact that he needed a Child from this relationship, which never came.

When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of 10 Million (Ten Million Great Britain Pounds Sterling with an offshore Bank in Nigeria...
(etc.)

John P. posts an interesting article "How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords", in which he describes the routes that a hacker would take to crack your passwords. Including, for example:

• Easily guessable passwords. Using "Cassie123" as your password? Bad idea!
• Brute force attack. How long would it take an average computer to crack a five-letter, lowercase-only password?
• Cracking a less secure site, then hoping you use the same password for more important sites
• Cracking your email password, then looking for password reminders from more important sites

For what it's worth, here's a quick way to create a reasonably secure password:

• Take a phrase that you can easily remember. I'm going to go with "Snape kills Dumbledore".
• Alter it slightly to make it less guessable. This one's a little short, so I'll extend it to "Oh noes! Snape kills Dumbledore!"
• Take initial letters for words or syllables. Take what seems sensible to you; "onsnkdbd"
• Mix it up a bit with capitals, numbers, and/or punctuation. More character types means better security. "0n!Sn8kDbd!"
• Practice typing it a bit to see how it flows, and change it a bit if it trips you up too much. On second thoughts, I don't like that 8, and the final ! is awkward. I'll change it to "0n!SnpkDbd;"

Microsoft suggests a similar technique, and provides a handy online password strength checker. It thinks the above password is "strong" (not "best", though, which it reserves for passwords at least 14 characters long... slightly overkill maybe?)

Edit: the post under the cut was accurate when posted, but Google have since stated that it was all a big mistake and have swiftly changed their EULA. See:

• Google on Chrome EULA controversy: our bad, we'll change it, Ars Technica — N. Anderson, 03 Sep 2008
• Google Updating Chrome EULA to Be Less Creepy, Gizmodo — M. Buchanan, 03 Sep 2008
• Current Chrome EULA, with section 11 all but removed