Pluggers by Rick McKee for May 05, 2023

That’s almost as easy as “123456” to guess.

And yes, the three most common passwords used by Americans are “guest”, “123456” and “password”. Also in the survey’s top twenty list were “abc123”, “baseball”, “iloveyou” and “monkey”. This is according to a survey by password security company Nordpass a few months ago.

None of my passwords are even 1% as easy to figure out. In fact, none of them include actual words …

Wait. Does this mean I have to give up Plugger status?

No wonder Kitty’s password keeps getting hacked.

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e3af6fc8b0fb76851c5cb4f/1599038289715-MHNBWFR06LMZOFHO53SC/Password+Crack.png

Incidentally my bank password is 15 characters: Numbers, uppercase letters, lowercase letters and symbols.

A single, simple word doesn’t always work with all systems. Nowadays you need a password that’s a mix of letters, numbers and whatnot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JNGI1dI-e8

https://youtu.be/rERApU26PcA

You’re an elder Plugger if you hear “Password” and think of Allen Ludden.

it’s supposed to be funny. i got it.

No Problem “Bing” will remember for you ;-)

Google popular passwords. You’ll be surprised. not

oh cool! good idea

Beats “pass” or 1,2,3,4."……..

In the windows system you find in“c:\windows\user\.yourUserName.\Appdata\… a file named “passwords.txt” (Better let the system search from “c:windows” for the file). You can open it with the plain editor, it contains the most frequent passwords used. You shouldn’t use any of them. And yes, “12345” and “qwery” are incuded ;).

Disclaimer: Since some of the passwords are somewhat – erm – weird, you shouldn’t open the file if you ain’t adult.

I worked for the military from the 1980s on and the password situation went from minor annoyance to bizarre. By the 2000’s, we had several different computer systems — one for unclassified, a couple more for “secret” — they had to be separate because they involved different groups of people (e.g., different contractors, different countries, different clients), and one for “top secret” and other highly specialized categories. Each computer system had its own set of passwords just to get on the system and then each project on that system had its own set of passwords. Parts of each project were separated because they involved different contractors [proprietary issues], different countries [e.g., NATO, NORAD, ANZUS, etc.].

And different projects would also be on at least two different computer systems. Each of these separations meant an totally different password; so, if one was on three different projects [fairly common after the Reagan “downsizing” of the government], one could have anywhere from 12 to 30 passwords to remember [nothing was to be written down]. AND, for extra security, each password had to be changed every 90 days and every time someone left the project. Passwords had to be 11 characters long, contain at least one capital, one digit, one special character, use both sides of the keyboard, and not be a word in any language. And they all had to be different [the computer system kept track and would not accept passwords you had used—made one question just how secure the whole system was].

I often wondered just how many man-hours were used up with people trying to remember their passwords and then trying to get IT to help get them reset [no reset using email — not secure enough]. I also wondered just where other people were hiding their ‘cheat-sheets’ because trying to remember all those passwords, as well as which one went with which system/project/section detracted a lot from the jobs we were supposed to be doing.

I’ve recently chanted all my passwords.

LOL… yeah, change all your passwords to one word. Hacker’s dream.

The company I retired from had a change password policy each month. No repeats not supposed to be any where near the old one. I had to keep a notebook just for what my currents were.

This is one of the best Pluggers ever

Continuing the all-Pluggers-must-be-morbidly-obese rule, today we have a real fat cat!

Now why would you do that to yourselves.

I read somewhere that most people would rather clean a toilet than come up with a new password. :)

Most sites ask for a mixture of letters, numbers and or symbols. Not going to work.

Don’t try this at home. The inventor of the multisymbol password now says its better to have a longer phrase that you will remember. BahBahBlackSheep is harder to crack than B#!S.

crafty

I’ve told this story before, but my Father-in-law is not very tech savvy. He didn’t remember the password for his sports site. I told him how to ask for a password reset. He claimed he never got an email from them. They contacted Spectrum, and filed a tech support claim for email problems. One day when they were away, we stopped to look at his computer. I checked his spam folder, nothing. I requested a password reset, and to be fair, in the 20 minutes I was there, the email didn’t arrive. I checked the trash folder, and there were SEVEN password reset requests, deleted unread! The most recent wouldn’t work since I had requested another. So I called them when they came home and asked WHY he deleted all those. He said “Because you told me never to click on an email where they ask for your password!” But… but… SMH! OK, so click on the new one, and follow the instructions. Half an hour later they call and ask if Walmart sells keyboards. “Why?” I ask… “Because they want special characters in the password, and the keyboard doesn’t have any!” Face palm! “Your password is ‘Football1!’ with a capital F!” “How do you know that?” “Because THAT’S what you’re going to make it!” And that’s not even the dumbest conversation I’ve had with him, but my blood pressure medication hasn’t kicked in yet this morning.

No, but it is funny. There’s nothing you can do but keep multiple files, hardcopies, and keep them where you’ll remember where to look but strangers won’t see them.

I use patterns which only make sense to me (like most things which make sense to me) as basics for passwords with add ons to the front and end of the passwords. So, say, all of my yahoo accounts have the same base with add ons to make each one different. Drives husband crazy when he deal with something for me. I will recite the basic part to him and say “these letters,etc go first and these go after”.