Midweek links
Wednesday, April 30th, 2014- This is both fun and educational: How Secure is My Password? Just in case, I suggest you not enter any real passwords, but something entirely different that just has the same general mix of numbers, letters, and symbols as any password you might use. And of course, how long it takes a PC to crack your password and how long it takes some creepazoid with the full power of government behind him are two very different things.
- Why we should all watch Groundhog Day. (Contains spoilers; but then, is there anybody who hasn’t already seen or doesn’t already know how that great movie unfolds?)
- Don’t you just hate that trendy new put-down by our superiors on the left? Well, here’s somebody who snotty “check your privilege” types the smackdown they deserve.
- John Lott has some good observations about Bloomberg’s latest.
- Bob Hoskins has died. Damn. He was a terrific actor and sure was a lot of fun in Roger Rabbit.
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April 30th, 2014
The password checking site assumes only the use of brute force, not dictionaries. I entered a passphrase “the quick brown fox…..” which a dictionary attack will easily crack. It told me it was very secure.
So if it tells you what you entered is safe take that with a large grain of salt.
Sad news about Bob Hoskins, he was a truly great actor.
April 30th, 2014
Good stuff on check your privilege. I’ve watched the least creative, most doctrinaire (not necessarily political, these people are also masters of the employee handbook) and least hardworking people get jobs in the name of righting this privilege imbalance. That’s why I believe that no matter what happens in the next election it’s just flat out over. HR, a place of not much importance twenty years ago, now pulls the strings with a bevy of left leaning women and panty wearing males who know nothing about the business they staff and don’t want to know. To them it’s about anything but productivity, which is even a bit of a dirty word within their leftist skulls. To make it worse, anyone with a cultural attitude of overcoming difficulties is hated and ostracized by lefties.
April 30th, 2014
+5 Jorge
Your password should be a pass *phrase* – an easily remembered sentence where the first letter of each word makes up the password.
Example: I read Claire because she makes me 4get to fear being a Thought Criminal. First letter plus punctuation gives us IrCbsmm4tfbaTC.
Ain’t nobody on earth (including NSA) going to crack that.
April 30th, 2014
http://xkcd.com/936/
Gives good advice on passwords/passphrases. I would expand that to use multiple languages, makes a dictionary attack that much harder.
May 1st, 2014
I can’t get the password site to open. Guess you guys broke it. Just as well, I hate passwords.
I don’t think the snotty folks got smacked down. For that they would have had to read the article. From the comments they looked at the lede, adjusted their blinders, and reacted to the white guy claiming he wasn’t privileged. The idea that you can learn something from people you don’t agree with isn’t in their worldview.
May 1st, 2014
And I think, in a year or so, it will be interesting to do a survey on, “Did you purchase your firearm because of President Obama or Mayor Bloomberg?”
May 1st, 2014
Here is an alternate password checking site.
https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm