Virtual Pants

Dan Goodin for Ars Technica:

The ancient art of password cracking has advanced further in the past five years than it did in the previous several decades combined. At the same time, the dangerous practice of password reuse has surged. The result: security provided by the average password in 2012 has never been weaker.

Shocking piece on how powerful and clever password crackers have become over the years. Equally shocking are the poor password practices that many people use. After reading this article, you should set a different password for each of your accounts, and make your passwords much longer and more complex. The difference between ‘fido88’ and '1@gR$eTyVC#asK3$%Wfd’ can’t be emphasized enough. A great tool to create and manage secure passwords is 1Password.