Rant about Computers and Passwords

Oh Joy!
I am not even sure where to begin...
My wife has just informed me that she spoke with her 83 yr old mother today. Her mother is on a 2 week vacation that includes a cruise.
The information of the day was that when she arrived at the hotel the first night she realized she did not have her iPad.
She thinks she could have left it on the plane...I suspect stolen but who knows.
As added great info, she had all her passwords written on a page and inside the flap of the iPad cover. Seems that this included bank info.
Even better...this happened 10 DAYS AGO. She has taken no action.

:facepalm:

If old people were meant to have computers and ipads, they would have been born in this century.

You can still remote wipe it and slow things down, but would have been effective on day 1 or 2, not two weeks later.

Sigh.... Man I feel your pain.

Good news.
There was also a list of passwords at her house. My wife got into Grams email account and there we find an email from the Airline that they have sent the iPad to Denver Lost and Found Center and we can get it sent back by following the links they provided!!!

Passwords changed by us for accounts and email. Should all be good!

In reply to JohnRW1621:

Glad to hear!

In reply to JohnRW1621:

That's great news!

It really can happen to anybody. My iPod was stolen out of my Jeep. I didn't have any lock screen or password on it. I didn't have the remote wipe app installed. I also had my email (both Yahoo and Gmail) apps setup to where you didn't need to login everytime the app opened. Why? My iPod can't get stolen. It won't happen to me.

It wasn't the 30gb of music I was worried about. It was all of the personal information and emails I was worried about. I changed all of my passwords immediately.

It can happen to you.

stanger_missle wrote: In reply to JohnRW1621: That's great news! It really can happen to anybody. My iPod was stolen out of my Jeep. I didn't have any lock screen or password on it. I didn't have the remote wipe app installed. I also had my email (both Yahoo and Gmail) apps setup to where you didn't need to login everytime the app opened. Why? My iPod can't get stolen. It won't happen to me. It wasn't the 30gb of music I was worried about. It was all of the personal information and emails I was worried about. I changed all of my passwords immediately. It can happen to you.

At last count I was well over 100 passwords for all the E36 M3 I have to deal with; pretty sure a few of them required Greek characters and numbers. I cant begin to tell you how berkeleying pleased I am with how computers have improved our lives. I happen to be old enough to recall when my password at the Bank was "Hello sir". "How are you today?"

1988RedT2 wrote: If old people were meant to have computers and ipads, they would have been born in this century.

that's not very nice

I know what flap you're talking about. I hate that flap.

The regs for authentication in an internet banking environment should mean her bank's login service should be robust enough to protect her banking info.

Every iPad is encrypted, so long as you have a PIN or password set.

She needs to reset everything. That stinks, and it needs to get better, but that's the answer today. Does she have another copy of her credentials? If not, this situation is a much bigger mess. There is a not insignificant chance the person who found the iPad simply turned it in to someone somewhere, or took it for themselves strictly for the iPad.

Finally, a password manager isn't a bad choice for the future. Look at 1password, Keepass, LastPass, or something similar.

1988RedT2 wrote: If old people were meant to have computers and ipads, they would have been born in this century.

Get off my lawn

1988RedT2 wrote: If old people were meant to have computers and ipads, they would have been born in this century.

When my stepdad passed away in 2010 after a freak accident my mom had never even turned the computer on. I made her a Yahoo account, taught her how to use the interweb's, got her on Facebook, and she figured out Youtube on her own(she was 63 for reference).

Talk about an experience. I took for granted not opening stupid spam emails...

Hey, I'm one to talk. My first computer experience was in high school, at an undisclosed time in the distant past. The terminal consisted of a Teletype machine, and we used a dial telephone to connect via modem. The modem looked like this:

But people a generation or two older than me, if such a thing is even possible, generally just don't get computers. Granted there are exceptions...

In her defense passwords are a horrible way to secure data these days.

You get the good Samaritan award.

Xceler8x wrote: In her defense passwords are a horrible way to secure data these days. You get the good Samaritan award.

Passwords are sort of like democracy - the worst option, except for all others that have been tried so far.

Another form of authentication in combination with passwords is better than just a password, but another form of authentication used in place of passwords usually means that your new means of authentication can be stolen without torturing you, is tied to your body and therefore can never be reset and carries an inherent privacy risk (and can maybe be stolen anyway), or that the can simply got kicked down the road onto another device which is probably secured with a password. Maybe.

Xceler8x wrote: In her defense passwords are a horrible way to secure data these days. You get the good Samaritan award.

well here's an old fart that doesn't know any better … what is a better way ?

wbjones wrote:

Xceler8x wrote: In her defense passwords are a horrible way to secure data these days. You get the good Samaritan award.

well here's an old fart that doesn't know any better … what is a better way ?

It's a bit fashionable to hate passwords in computer security right now, because passwords are free and require no specialized hardware or software, and are therefore bad for business.

I like Google Authenticator when combined with a simpler password.

It is fashionable to hate passwords now mostly due to the fact that they have to be more and more complex as time goes on. Their lifespan is measurable at this point due to many factors. Remember when you could secure an account with a simple word used as a password? Your password might've been "franks" at some point.

Now passwords have to be more complex. Now you're required to have punctuation, numbers, alternative characters, etc in passwords as that makes them stronger and harder to crack with the more powerful computers that are available today. The latest recommendation is a pass phrase instead of a simple word. Something like "Myd0gh@sFl3a$". That is My Dog Has Fleas with the required characters for what is considered a strong password these days.

I like the idea behind Google Authenticator because it takes a simple password and uses a physical object to give you a second set of numbers to enter in addition to the password. You install Google Authenticator on an Android phone. When you want to login you enter your password and then enter the digits given to you by Authenticator. It's essentially the same two factor authentication standard used by most corporate level VPN services like RSA. I use it along with a password storing app like LastPass.

LastPass is free to use. You pay for support if you encounter any issues.

Just made me think of this

http://www.theonion.com/articles/latest-online-security-breach-forces-mom-to-change,36643/

wbjones wrote:

1988RedT2 wrote: If old people were meant to have computers and ipads, they would have been born in this century.

that's not very nice

sadly, the computer doesn't care if its user is incapable or irresponsible.

technology, we must remember, is all made by people.

1988RedT2 wrote: Hey, I'm one to talk. My first computer experience was in high school, at an undisclosed time in the distant past. The terminal consisted of a Teletype machine, and we used a dial telephone to connect via modem. The modem looked like this: But people a generation or two older than me, if such a thing is even possible, generally just don't get computers. Granted there are exceptions...

That was state of the art when I was graduating from college.

spitfirebill wrote: That was state of the art when I was graduating from college.

I recall my college engineering Fortran course quite clearly. Students were required to write programs to complete assignments. Each line of code was punched on a card. The resulting stack of cards, some of which would fill a small suitcase, was submitted to the professor. If it ran, you got a printout in a day or two. If it didn't run, you got your stack of cards back. My, how things have changed!

yeah my first data processing class was on a IBM 360 (I think), Fortran … punch cards

Doing favors for a friend wound me up working front registration desk at a large expo this weekend (think thousands of people).

Just about every phone that was turned in was unsecured, I managed to get into the phone and dial "mom" or "dad" or whoever they had been texting about meeting at the show. 100% return rate.

1988RedT2 wrote:

spitfirebill wrote: That was state of the art when I was graduating from college.

I recall my college engineering Fortran course quite clearly. Students were required to write programs to complete assignments. Each line of code was punched on a card. The resulting stack of cards, some of which would fill a small suitcase, was submitted to the professor. If it ran, you got a printout in a day or two. If it didn't run, you got your stack of cards back. My, how things have changed!

I was maybe a year behind you..ie No IBM cards but same language and lack of feedback on your code.