Tech genius and Drupal developer Aaron Winborn comes to the rescue with advice on quick and clever ways to create hack-proof passwords. It's easier than you think.

::::::::

It's exasperating to be instructed by yet another annoying pop-up window that my password needs to have a few additions to make it safe: a number, a special character, and an Egyptian hieroglyphic. (And for added security, I should add a differential equation and a Cyrillic cuss word!)

Somewhere along the line, it feels like my brain refuses to take another step. And that's before I record all of these unique passwords somewhere "safe," because who could remember all of them?

And they are usually quite safe, even from me.

But longtime friend, Aaron Winborn, a true tech genius and Drupal developer, came to the rescue with his fabulous blog post on this topic. Last week I didn't know what algorithms were, this week I am teaching my nearly 90-year-old dad to use them. And it's easier than you think.

Below is a portion of Aaron's response to a friend who asked for advice after his email had been hacked, which Aaron posted in his blog:

After, and only after, you have scanned your computer for viruses, then you can get on with the business of securing your accounts against identity theft.

You will need to change your email password yet again, I am sorry to say. Additionally, you will want to change the security questions, which I believe that Yahoo will ask.

Treat the security questions as passwords in themselves, as these are most commonly used to hack in to an email account. That means that you should not use anything resembling what they actually ask for, such as your mother's maiden name or your first dog. That can be discovered with Google these days.

Next, a word about passwords. As you may have heard by now, you need to have a password that cannot be guessed. Unfortunately, that is not enough. You also need to have a mix of cases, at least one number, and a special character, such as a punctuation mark.

Additionally, you need to have a different password for every account that you have.

I cannot stress that last paragraph enough. It is too easy for a hacker to get into, say an account with a forum, and use that to get into your Wells Fargo account. For instance, to use myself as an example, about six years ago, I accidentally broadcasted my password into a chat room, and about two weeks later, I got an email from a woman wondering where her Gucci bag was that she had purchased from my eBay account. It turns out that someone in Russia had hacked into my eBay account and listed about 100 fake Gucci bags.

I know that this sounds daunting, but it is necessary. Fortunately, you can use what is called an algorithm to remember your dozens of new passwords that you'll need to create. You can use that to create a new password for any site, and you will always remember it. Additionally, it will be secure for all intents and purposes.

Basically, you will choose a passphrase, modify and, and apply it to any site. For example, and please do not use this example, let's say you choose "apple" as your passphrase. We will modify that to have a punctuation mark and a number, so that it will be "@pp1E". Then you would append that to the 1st 4 characters of whatever site that you are creating an account for. For instance, for eBay, your password would be "ebay@pp1E", and your Hotmail account would be "hotm@pp1E". This will make your passwords immune to so-called dictionary attacks, where they try to figure out your password by entering random words from the dictionary.

Much easier to remember, right? And for your financial accounts, I would suggest creating yet another algorithm, as an extra layer of protection.

You can apply this same idea to those security questions that you see everywhere. Basically, you do not want to actually use a real answer, because it is far too easy for a determined hacker to read about that experience in your first car that you posted in Facebook. Instead, treat them with the same respect as your passwords. For instance, you might create an algorithm with your grandmother's cat's name that you apply to a site's question for referring to your own pet.

Once you have done this, you should be fairly safe.

Good luck.
Aaron

Aaron's full blog post offers additional tips.



Before being diagnosed with ALS, Aaron was a developer for Advomatic for seven years, where he worked extensively with Drupal, an open source Content Management System used to power websites. Advomatic is used to power websites from blogs and mom-and-pop brochure sites to enterprise level sites such as The White House and Sony BMG. Before that, he taught at a Sudbury model school, which provides a mixed-age,  democratic, non-coercive form of education. In earlier years, he worked with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. He now lives in Harrisburg, PA, with his wife and two young daughters. He blogs at http://aaronwinborn.com and continues to contribute his time and expertise to the Drupal community.

Authors Website: http://www.OceanViewArts.com

Authors Bio:

Meryl Ann Butler is an artist, author, educator and OpedNews Managing Editor who has been actively engaged in utilizing the arts as stepping-stones toward joy-filled wellbeing since she was a hippie. She began writing for OpEdNews in Feb, 2004. She became a Senior Editor in August 2012 and Managing Editor in January, 2013. In June, 2015, the combined views on her articles, diaries and quick link contributions topped one million. She was particularly happy that her article about Bree Newsome removing the Confederate flag was the one that put her past the million mark.

Her art in a wide variety of media can be seen on her YouTube video, "Visionary Artist Meryl Ann Butler on Creativity and Joy" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcGs2r_66QE

A NYC native, her response to 9-11 was to pen an invitation to healing through creativity, entitled, "90-Minute Quilts: 15+ Projects You Can Stitch in an Afternoon" (Krause 2006), which is a bestseller in the craft field. The sequel, MORE 90-Minute Quilts: 20+ Quick and Easy Projects With Triangles and Squares was released in April, 2011. Her popular video, How to Stitch a Quilt in 90 Minutes with Meryl Ann Butler can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrShGOQaJQ8

She has been active in a number of international, arts-related projects as a citizen diplomat, and was arts advisor to Baltimore's CIUSSR (Center for Improving US-Soviet Relations), 1987-89. She made two trips to the former USSR in 1987 and 1988 to speak to artists, craftpeople and fashion designers on the topic of utilizing the arts as a tool for global wellbeing. She created the historical "First US-Soviet Children's Peace Quilt Exchange Project" in 1987-88, which was the first time a reciprocal quilt was given to the US from the former USSR.

Her artwork is in collections across the globe.

Meryl Ann is a founding member of The Labyrinth Society and has been building labyrinths since 1992. She publishes an annual article about the topic on OpEdNews on World Labyrinth Day, the first Saturday in May.

OpEdNews Senior Editor Joan Brunwasser interviewed Meryl Ann in "Beyond Surviving: How to Thrive in Challenging Times" at https://www.opednews.com/articles/Beyond-Surviving--How-to-by-Joan-Brunwasser-Anxiety_Appreciation_Coronavirus_Creativity-200318-988.html

Find out more about Meryl Ann's artistic life in "OEN Managing Ed, Meryl Ann Butler, Featured on the Other Side of the Byline" at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/OEN-Managing-Ed-Meryl-Ann-in-Life_Arts-Artistic_Artists_Quilt-170917-615.html

On Feb 11, 2017, Senior Editor Joan Brunwasser interviewed Meryl Ann in Pink Power: Sister March, Norfolk, VA at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Pink-Power-Sister-March--by-Joan-Brunwasser-Pussy-Hats-170212-681.html

"Creativity and Healing: The Work of Meryl Ann Butler" by Burl Hall is at
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Creativity-and-Healing--T-by-Burl-Hall-130414-18.html

Burl and Merry Hall interviewed Meryl Ann on their BlogTalk radio show, "Envision This," at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/envision-this/2013/04/11/meryl-ann-butler-art-as-a-medicine-for-the-soul

Archived articles www.opednews.com/author/author1820.html
Older archived articles, from before May 2005 are here.