[WanderingTraveler]

Anatomy of a hack: How crackers ransack passwords like “qeadzcwrsfxv1331” | Ars Technica
So, uh, here you go. If you're whole life is online, sweet nightmares :3

[BIGPADDY]

Great to read before you go to sleep...... Gives me a chance to change all my passwords

However in all seriousness most users passwords are either abc123, name, animal, location or my favorite nothing at all straight and easy access.

I got told that the most secure password you can use is a sentence such as "I Like Long Walks On The Beach At 3:00am In The Morning" it easy to remember, makes it harder to crack due to all the spaces, caps, number, colon etc.

[jmshub]

I use Lastpass. Its a great password management system that works on every major browser and mobile platform, including the excellent apps for WP7/WP8.

[GraemeT]

I read the article a few weeks ago. Someone at work put it on our intranet. I find the subject fascinating. A science in itself. Reminds me of a similar article about PIN numbers I read a few months ago. Some guy could crack a third by simply guessing. He said loads of people use 1234 and 4321, believe it or not, along with other simple variants (5678 etc.). He went on to say that a lot of PINs begin with 19 (birth year related), so you've only got two digits left to figure. However, he was at first puzzled why 2580 kept coming up. Any of you guys care to have a guess why (not why he was puzzled but why that number kept coming up, I should add)?

[Laura Knotek]

I read the article a few weeks ago. Someone at work put it on our intranet. I find the subject fascinating. A science in itself. Reminds me of a similar article about PIN numbers I read a few months ago. Some guy could crack a third by simply guessing. He said loads of people use 1234 and 4321, believe it or not, along with other simple variants (5678 etc.). He went on to say that a lot of PINs begin with 19 (birth year related), so you've only got two digits left to figure. However, he was at first puzzled why 2580 kept coming up. Any of you guys care to have a guess why (not why he was puzzled but why that number kept coming up, I should add)?

If the ATMs had the * and #, I'm sure 147* and 369# would be just as common.

[GraemeT]

Very good, Laura. Go to the top of the class!