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Passwords
Passwords are the easiest thing to have and quite
worth the effort.
For Windows 95/98 and alike operating systems passwords
offer only limited protection. You can easily bypass them. They
are convenient though! You can store your personal settings for
working on your system in your user account. These settings are
probably different from the ones your 13 year-old uses, or your
parent, if you are the 13 year-old reading this.
On Windows NT/2000, UNIX based operating systems
like LINUX and other so called professional operating systems user-names
(also called logon-names or accounts-names) are required and your
No. 1 choice of intrusion protection and related data corruption
protection. Without a valid user name and password, you simply cannot
access the computer. Furthermore, data access rights can be controlled
down to the level of a single data file. In other word, you can
even restrict the access to sensitive information to defined users
of the computer or (local area, virtual private) network.
A Note on Windows NT/2000
Windows NT/2000 as members of the Microsoft family
of operating systems support two hard-disk file systems. FAT (File
Allocation Table) and NTFS (NT File System). They "define"
the way information is organized, stored and retrieved on your
hard-drive. The FAT-system basically is a DOS (Microsofts first
operating system) file system and does not offer the possibility
to define and control user access rights to your data! It's simply
outdated!
It really makes me mad that new computers are
sold, which run the "professional" operating system
Windows NT/2000 and the hard-drive is formatted for the unprofessional,
unsecure and outdated FAT. This renders a lot of security features
built into Windows NT/2000 useless.
Please check your Windows NT/2000 system to see
which file system is used. Find the instruction to check your
system and if necessary convert your file system to NTFS here.
Good/Bad Passwords
Even though passwords offer powerful security protection, also with
regards to the internet connection of a computer, they are quite
often not used or applied in a way rendering them useless.
If your name is John, your user-name is John
and you use John as password, you may forget about it altogether.
It's the first password an intruder would try; and this attempt
is embarrassingly successful.
Passwords like John1, John10 or John007 etc. are
only mildly better and still will make an intruder (cracker) laugh.
Reasonable Passwords
Reasonable passwords are
- at least 6 characters long
- contain at least one number (0 - 9)
- do not contain names of persons, characters, cities, etc.
Do I hear you complaining? How am I supposed to
remember my passwords, or something alike!?? Well, excuse me! You
are able to remember phone numbers, PIN numbers, access codes (to
your home security system) and other things that are unrelated to
your direct personal, love or other live and you will still use
only about 25% of your brain capacity in your lifetime. So set
your mind to it, be positive about it and you will remember
passwords other than your name. If it helps your motivation, think
about the information you have on your hard-drive as a diamond collection
you don't want anybody to steal.
You can come up with an association chain like
"Mothers in law
are the no. 1 source of
jokes"
and your password would be:
milatn1soj
Pretty good!
- Just don't use well known phrases ("To be or not to be")
- Don't repeat a character more than once
- Spread your letters across the alphabet
- Don't forget: passwords are case sensitive
Passwords on the Internet
Never, and I really mean never, use the same user-name/password
combination on the Internet, which you use on your home or business
computer. If an Internet site requires you to register or join
asking for a user-name and password, use an artificial or funny
user name and a password, which is different from the one you
use on your computers.
Some of these site will send you an confirmation
e-mail stating your username and password. E-mail, if it
is not encrypted, is about the most unsecure form of communication!
It runs through a lot of computers and a lot of people can potentially
have access to it. If someone does, he/she sees where it comes
from and where it goes to together with your username and password.
Finally
Don't store your passwords in a file on your computer! Write them
down and store them in a safe (place). Once you don't need them
written down any more, eat the paper up!
If you have questions
or want consultation
If you have questions or want consultation please contact
me.
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