[Editor’s note: The below post, “Living post-password”, was originally posted on this blog on 2 April 2013. It’s been reposted below with several updates and new insights as part of this blog’s ‘Marching Toward 2014’ series of posts.]
Passwords and passphrases. I (still) hate them.
Yes, I used the ‘h’ word. Passwords and passphrases give people the illusion of safety and security when they are one of the easiest things to crack. I cringe when I come across major banks whose login mechanisms are weaker than, say, Facebook’s mechanisms.
I’ll admit that the inspiration for this post came in November 2012 after reading the story of Mat Honan in WIRED Magazine. The article’s linked but I’ll summarize: Mr. Honan had his entire digital life wiped away because a hacker could defeat his email account password.
Do I have your attention? Good. Because for the next few paragraphs, I’ll showcase some alternatives and addition to passwords and some questions that you need to ask yourself about your own computing practices. Continue reading “Replay: Living post-password”