Duckk wrote:I'm a computer science major, so I keep an eye out regarding security. I'm not worried about spam bots accessing your account. I'm worried about someone getting access to the database, cracking the password and email list, then using it to hijack accounts elsewhere. Even if you practice safe internetting, not everyone else does. So if they recycle email accounts and passwords to register at other sites, an attacker could easily get access to your entire digital life (there's a great Wired article where that happened to one of the writers). To that end, I want the passwords to be complex as possible, to make the problem space large. No admin worth his or her salt would ever want to make things easy for an attacker, no matter what said attacker's ultimate goal is. Be thankful I didn't enforce a longer password length or a requirement for non-alphanumeric symbols. Nowadays it's quite trivial to crack passwords 10 to 11 alphanumeric characters long, thanks to GPU assisted hashing and selective dictionary based rainbow tables.
I'll bite.
Anyone who signs up with their real email address to anything on the internet let alone something as benign as a forum for your favorite author is an idiot.
Otherwise.
Who cares if they hack my "account". It is an internet forum. Let em. At worst you ban my hiney if my "low grade" password gets hacked and some jerk spammer gets a hold of it.
An easy password saves me buckoo time every time I log in. Swear everyone is afraid of the internet boogeyman. Same goes for all of everyone's locks, dead bolts, bars, alarm systems, dogs, and other devices. Could get rid of them all and save money while making far more as you waste less of your life being 'safe' and more actually living.
Somehow doubt my pet peeve diatribe will change your mind. Every comp sci server guy I know are all the same(includes my brother in-law). Worried about boogeymen, who they all admit could easily hack their system if they tried, meanwhile burdening everyone with time consuming conniptions supposedly thwarting such people. Ultimately gaining nothing except the wastage of everyone time.
Well off to go enjoy the forums. Read them long enough. Figure I will participate.