Just use "the one who's name we dare not speak"... or type.

Me... I'd just use obama but I don't think it deserves a capital letter.

#1 - Strengthen that password by substituting a number for a letter. In your case add a big zero.

Use a different password for each online account you have, and change them regularly. There are websites, such as "Bad Neighborhood", which generate random passwords. Never use "personal" type passwords.

More of "Sky is falling!", really just a prelude to more government control. (Soften the folks up with some made up scary stuff)

I worked six years at a money Center Bank (250,000 employees worldwide). Worked in the dotCom secure sign on location. Those lists of user passwords are not available to the employees who work in security. BS articles like this ignore the FACT that secure website all use a three failed attempts lockout. Meaning that you can't run a script and TRY to find a password. The account will automatically be frozen if you try to do that.

Also employees of secure web site (banks/brokerages) use random passwords (RAS technology) which scramble ever 60 seconds. No way to hack that, cannot be done.

we're so broke, hackers would be tempted to ADD money to our accounts out of pity...

Just to add, if system of passwords for important website (financial) starts to appear non secure, all banks already have the technology to supply Physical Tokens (looks like a credit card). To login to your account, you would have to swipe that card into a small reader (same as at the grocery store). The card cannot be forged.

Singapore requires this technology at their banks.

Before the government claims they need to step in (if they can get us to that level of fear), we demand physical tokens for logins.

Again, total BS story.

Many people use a lot of personal information for passwords because it is easy to remember. They are begging to be hacked.

Make your passwords difficult and nonsensical. Use a password program such as Roboform or other brand. Best, Take a notepad, put your sites and passwords on it, then save it to a thumbdrive that you don't keep in your computer all the time. Plug it in to see your password then take it out again.


"Valerie Jarrett Has Better Security Than American Ambassadors"

This is not a BS story. It is targeted more for IT professionals, though. When virtually everything is available via a computer network, the user login, via passwords, biometrics or tokens, or any combination thereof, is your only protection. of course it almost goes without saying (almost!), that your password security is only as good as that of the companies you are relying on. A case in point, last August, a writer for Wired magazine had most of his on-line accounts hacked. (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/) Now a good portion of his problem stemmed from some bad practices at Apple and Google, but his password choices increased his vulnerability. And yes my fellow IT professionals, not everyone follows "best practices".

Which my password is: NomorepResidentbaloney!@2012

I think it's kinda safe.

#4, you miss a major point of the article. We are human and make things easier for ourselves by reusing memorable passwords. While you description of the capabilities of a secure site is accurate, most sites are NOT that secure. So if a weak site is compromised and the same password is used at other sites, there is no need to "crack" the more secure site, just try the same password and bingo, you are in. Suppose you use your dogs name as a base password but add some different numbers to it at different sites. If one site is cracked, it's trivial to get the others. So OK, a bank may be pretty secure but if 30 other sites that you have logged into are cracked for your account, there's a pretty good chance that I have your bank password as well. Many of these, 3 try lockouts, reset after some time has passed. I program my computer to make 2 attempts and then wait a few hours and try a couple more. Eventually ....

The amount of successful cracking, identity theft, etc is escalating rapidly. Unless you are really good at protecting yourself, you ARE vulnerable.

I would like to see a hardware USB password safe that generates and remembers unique and strong passwords for every place you need a password. Place the key on your machine and it supplies the password. As a safe measure it's contents could be dumped to a printer only if it's plugged into YOUR computer (system serial number, MAC card address, etc, etc) and you provide a secure password. However you could (if enabled) use it to login to a site from any system by providing a master password to activate it.

Leaving it up to people = not secure.