Practical Technology

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Would you sell your Password for Chocolate?

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I would at least hold out for really good chocolate but according to a study conducted in advance of the Infosecurity Europe conference in London, 70% of people surveyed at the Liverpool Street station on the London tube were happy to give up their login and password for a candy bar.

Want to know what’s worse? 34% gave out their ID and password to the researchers without any chocolate. I’d at least have gotten a Milky-Way bar out of the deal.

The reports of the study I’ve read didn’t say which logins and passwords people turn over, but since the study also discovered — surprise! — that people tended to use obvious passwords or the same password on multiple systems, it really doesn’t matter. Clearly, user ids and passwords are pretty darn useless as a real world defense against would-be crackers.

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