Privacy generally
- Thread starter Neddo
- 38 comments
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- Bratvegas
- GTP_Liquid
If you want to try and come up with a more secure password, try howsecureismypassword.net.
Privacy is more than just passwords though. Bit of a lame opening to a very broad topic.
Privacy is more than just passwords though. Bit of a lame opening to a very broad topic.
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Does revealing that fact narrow it down a bit or not?
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- The__Luke
magic_town
Premium
- 956
- Melbourne
- magic_town2
- magilt
294 billion years here. But I put in one of my old passwords.
Isn't a site where you input your password for a computer to read a little dodgy? I mean, I don't know much about this sort of thing, but couldn't someone hack the website and see which ip addresses are putting in which passwords?
Isn't a site where you input your password for a computer to read a little dodgy? I mean, I don't know much about this sort of thing, but couldn't someone hack the website and see which ip addresses are putting in which passwords?
Brend
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- ClassicBrend
As far as I can tell, no requests are sent from the website so it's literally just like you typing on Notepad and the calculation runs based on input.
Well, I can't see any signs of data being sent/received.
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- ScapeGoat4U
- WhippingBoy
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- Johnnypenso
In a thread about privacy and passwords, we have people entering their passwords into a random website they know nothing about to check the security of their passwords. Am I missing something here? I'd half expect to click on that link and have a graphic pop up saying, "I got your password now dumbass!"
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- Dennisch
That's why I checked with similar length and different symbols.
13.7 billion years. I am the universe. I am the number 42.
(it's actually 14 billion years but heho)
Danoff
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Did someone really create a website where you type in your password and then they tell you something about it? Holy crap, what a great fishing concept. Harvest tons of passwords, guess the username based on what you find out about the person from their IP address and any other information you can gather, try it on facebook, google, common banks...
Tell me none of you were typing your passwords into that site.
- 1,223
- Kalayaan Islands
I didn't type in my actual password but rather something similar to it just to gauge the strength of my password.
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Not exactly - as far as I can see the script to calculate the cracking time is client-side, and what you type in isn't sent to the server. You can load the site, kill your internet connection and you'll still get a result if you type something in.
Edit: Ooops, tree'd.
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- United Kingdom
Yeah, I'm no expert either so I could be wrong, but if you look at the network log in google once the page has loaded, it doesn't seem to send any data anywhere (apart from something to tell social media ad-bots that you're interested in internet security, though again, this is a guess).
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Yeah I used Firebug to look at the traffic and it shows exactly what you say. Not that I blame anyone for being skeptical of a site they've never heard of asking for passwords, though.
Danoff
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I didn't go there to look at the code. Maybe it's fine, but programmers are tricky people. I'm paranoid enough not to trust whether I have read the code well enough to know that nothing is overloaded with a replacement function that stores something locally until a later date and sends it out at that time. Then again, I have TFA on my google account because I expect it to get compromised at some point. I wish my bank supported that, I'd go for that in a heartbeat (I even send them a request to support it).
Edit:
Speaking of expecting things to get compromised. I have pioneered a system that I recommend to everyone. For automatic bill payments that you pay with a credit card (because you'd like to be able to dispute it and you want the cash back), set it up to draw from a card you use for NOTHING ELSE.
Have a dedicated credit card for "dirty" purchases supplied by a major card carrier. I use my VISA for this. Sketchy international website is the only one carrying what I want? VISA. Random ebay/paypal purchase? VISA. Basically anything non-trusted online? VISA.
When my VISA number gets stolen (which is about once per year), they overnight me a new card, refund any fraudulent charges, and life goes on. None of my billpay arrangements are interrupted. There is no hassle. I have a secondary card which is not my bill-payment card which can be relied upon in the meantime.
Here's the breakdown of my 3 major credit cards:
- Primary "dirty" card: 1.5% cash back on everything. Gets stolen regularly
- Costco VISA for travel, gas, restaurants.
- Bill-pay "clean" card: 1% on everything
This setup enables me to use my primary card with impunity online. BTW, don't ever use a debit card for anything ever.
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If your password isn't a common or guessable one, its level of security is basically an exponent between the number of eligible characters and the number of characters in your password. For example, if a password is case-sensitive and allows numerals but not any punctuation or symbols, there are 56,800,235,584 possible six-character passwords, or 3,521,614,606,208 possible seven-character passwords.
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So, err, the time needed for an average computer to crack a password, according to that website - that's just the raw time to run through enough random combinations to "guess" right password, I suppose? I mean, most websites block further log-in attempts after entering a wrong password a couple of times...
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