Don't be an ass-word with your password

[CA3LE]

I want to share something with you that some of you may not know. Knowing this might save you from being defrauded or having your identity stolen.

Obviously your password should be secure but even with the most secure password imaginable it does little if you're going out every day telling people the password. You might do this often and not even realize it!

Let me ask you this. When you find a new website that you like and you sign up, do you use the same password that you use for your primary email? If you do, you're asking for trouble.

Malicious webmasters (and hackers who hack legit sites) can log that information and attempt to login to your email account that you supplied them with during registration. If you use the same password to signup as you use for your email and they're able to get in... the fun for them has just begun.

Do you bank, get receipts from online retailers or associate that same email address with anything financial or personal? They will search and scour your inbox and outbox for anything of value. If your inbox has nothing of value, they'll use it to spam people.

The password you use for your primary email needs to be secure. You don't necessarily need to get crazy on it but keep this stuff in mind when you set important passwords.

Here are some suggestions and best practices for strong passwords.

• Password should contain characters from at least three of these categories: uppercase (A - Z); lowercase (a - z); base 10 digits (0 - 9); non - alphanumeric (e.g. !, $, #, or %); Unicode characters (if allowed).
• Password should not contain more than 3 characters from your account name
• For extra protection don't use any dictionary words. Even if you modify them slightly, it's build into many brute force algorithms to check for dictionary words and common modifications on dictionary words (use my nick as an example, CA3LE = CABLE... or 1337 = LEET ...CA3LE = 1337 too - simple math, lol).

That will make it nearly impossible to hack, each addition makes it exponentially harder to figure out the password.

Let me give you some examples with math. Well use a length of 8 characters in our password and see the difference in the number of combinations.

• If you use only a-z in your passwords
  26^8 = 208,827,064,576 combinations
• A-Z and a-z
  (26+26)^8 = 53,459,728,531,456 combinations
• A-Z, a-z, 0-9
  (26+26+10)^8 = 218,340,105,584,896 combinations
• A-Z, a-z, 0-9 & special characters
  (26+26+10+32)^8 = 6,095,689,385,410,820 combinations
• A-Z, a-z, 0-9, special characters & unicode characters (currently 1,114,112 characters and growing - Unicode Lookup is a cool website to check on that)
  (26+26+10+32+1114112)^8 = 2.37532993765908E48 ... so 237,532,993,765,908,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 combinations

See how much harder the password becomes. Although, like I said, if you're using it elsewhere it might be sifted making it's complexity null.

Personally, I have a little list of stupid passwords that I use to sign up for stupid things... sites that I'm not buying stuff from. Then a list of difficult passwords I use for everything else. If I think a site looks a little shady I'll register with a junk address on top of using the junk password.

I'm not suggesting you make your password Uf∞8&iE¶ª2^;k¡∞¢•. But for god sake you can't use password123 anymore and you can't use the same email and password to signup on other sites. Trust me, it's dumb. Always has been but even more today.

[Pgoodwin1]

That last big number is 394,573,089,701,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times bigger than Avogardo's Number 6.022E23 which is the number of molecules in a mole of a substance. So yes, that is a lot of combinations.

Oh. And I forgot: 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12345678987654321

[CA3LE]

That last big number is 394,573,089,701,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times bigger than Avogardo's Number 6.022E23 which is the number of molecules in a mole of a substance. So yes, that is a lot of combinations.Oh. And I forgot: 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12345678987654321

That works with any 111 sequence...

111*111 = 12321

1111*111 = 1234321

Etc...

111,111*111,111 = 12345654321

Etc...

Math is riddled with tricks like that. One of the beautiful aspects of math is that it has patterns, the same patterns are displayed in nature. On both macro and micro scales. Math is amazing on many levels. It has always facinated me.

[nanobot]

and

are the same.

Thanks,

EBrown

[CA3LE]

and

are the same.

Thanks,

EBrown

 

So I take it that works with any number 1,2,3 etc...  in the second equation... is the "n!" saying any number other than the number? 

 

I know limit, summation, infinity... but seriously, I'm a high school dropout.  You probably know a hell of a lot more about algebraic equations than I would.  Can you explain those equations please?

 

I failed Math from 7th grade on, I failed pretty much every class until I was put in a school that left me alone and let me work on my own.   ... then I got hired at Cox when I was like 2 credits from graduating early.  Cox wouldn't have hired me if they knew that... but I worked there for 5 years so obviously I was the right guy for the job.  I never finished and never got a GED because I got to the point where I felt I didn't have anything to prove to anyone. Within 2 years of working there I was pulling nearly 6 figures, while other people I knew were racking up student loans that they are still paying off to this day.    ... you CAN make money and learn at the same time.  You just have to be willing to start at the ground level and work your way up.

 

In my humble opinion. To anyone who reads this...  If you are thinking about going to college.  Unless you want to be in the medical field or something where you ABSOLUTELY need that piece of paper or unless you feel that you need that medium to learn... You should take the money you'd spend on college and start a business.

[nanobot]

So I take it that works with any number 1,2,3 etc...  in the second equation... is the "n!" saying any number other than the number? 

 

I know limit, summation, infinity... but seriously, I'm a high school dropout.  You probably know a hell of a lot more about algebraic equations than I would.  Can you explain those equations please?

 

It's Calculus. Very basic calculus.

The n! portion means take the arbitrary integer n (from 0 to infinity) and the multiply it by each of the next lower numbers.

function factorial($number)
{
    if ($number == 0)
        return $number;
    else
        return $number * factorial($number - 1);
}

That's how it works. (Arbitrary pseudo-code, I didn't actually test it, but it should work fine.)

0! = 1;

1! = 1 * 0! = 1;

2! = 2 * 1! = 2 * 1 * 0! = 2;

3! = 3 * 2! = 3 * 2 * 1! = 3 * 2 * 1 * 0! = 6;

4! = 4 * 3! = 4 * 3 * 2! = 4 * 3 * 2 * 1! = 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 * 0! = 24;

Thanks,

EBrown

[CA3LE]

It's Calculus. Very basic calculus.

The n! portion means take the arbitrary integer n (from 0 to infinity) and the multiply it by each of the next lower numbers.

function factorial($number){    if ($number == 0)        return $number;    else        return $number * factorial($number - 1);}

That's how it works. (Arbitrary pseudo-code, I didn't actually test it, but it should work fine.)

0! = 1;

1! = 1 * 0! = 1;

2! = 2 * 1! = 2 * 1 * 0! = 2;

3! = 3 * 2! = 3 * 2 * 1! = 3 * 2 * 1 * 0! = 6;

4! = 4 * 3! = 4 * 3 * 2! = 4 * 3 * 2 * 1! = 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 * 0! = 24;

Thanks,

EBrown

I've never studied calculus .. Newton was pretty insane to come up with that. That it all just works, no matter what, every time. Math is really the only reliable thing in the Universe.

... I've never studied it, but I've come to understand parts of it and it's concepts in my programming and other research I do. When you put that in a function it's instantly understood. I didn't test it, but it should return zero every time, right? Using calculus symbols I had to really think about it... and even then, I can't put together the whole concept to arrive at an answer. I understand some of the symbols because I often research subjects that explain things in math. But to tell you the truth, I didn't even know that was calculus.

It's cool to watch your thought process grow over the years. You're such a smart dude, you're going on to do big things.

[nanobot]

I've never studied calculus .. Newton was pretty insane to come up with that. That it all just works, no matter what, every time. Math is really the only reliable thing in the Universe.

... I've never studied it, but I've come to understand parts of it and it's concepts in my programming and other research I do. When you put that in a function it's instantly understood. I didn't test it, but it should return zero every time, right? Using calculus symbols I had to really think about it... and even then, I can't put together the whole concept to arrive at an answer. I understand some of the symbols because I often research subjects that explain things in math. But to tell you the truth, I didn't even know that was calculus.

It's cool to watch your thought process grow over the years. You're such a smart dude, you're going on to do big things.

Nonononono that function returns the factorial I posted.

Edit: Forgot that I wrote that function wrong.

function factorial($number)
{
    if ($number == 0)
        return 1;
    else
        return $number * factorial($number - 1);
}

That's how it should look.

factorial(4) = 24;

I can test it tomorrow and show you, it's pretty basic. Maybe I'll write a summation one as well. Although Summations are easy calculus. The hard part is figuring out what a summation converges to when it is added from 0, 1, or any arbitrary number to infinity.

I.e. The series

converges if |z| < 1. But |z| MUST be less than one, it cannot be equal to, it cannot be greater than, it must be less than. Otherwise the series diverges.

Thanks,

EBrown