Sunday, November 23, 2014

Passwords

Passwords on anything to do with computers or smartphones can be a problem. When I got an Iphone5 I wondered if I wanted the thumbprint password or not. In some ways  this is a good idea in another it is a horrible idea. First of all, if you use your thumbprint not only the government knows you are using your smartphone but every government on earth that wants to and any criminal that wants too also.

So, I'm still not sure whether having a thumbprint password is useful. Then if you shut down your phone you still have to put in a numerical password anyhow when you bring it back up.

Then what I found on my blog site is if your password to your blog site is too predictable someone might find it and  mess up what you are doing.

However, if you make it an unusual length of password with both letters and numbers with one or more caps on your letters and don't allow the computer to remember your password, it puts many more layers of security between you and any hackers.

It's not that any password of any length couldn't be decrypted. It's just that it takes a whole lot of effort if you put obstacles to any hacker on any of the things you want to keep safe. So, the more layers of obstacles you can place in the way of people the less likely they are to go to the trouble to hack anything of yours.

By the way, I realized that it wasn't safe to have any banking at all online so I withdrew everything from online banking. I haven't regretted this even though it makes it more difficult to know what is going on with my accounts sometimes unless I'm willing to either phone or just go into the bank and talk to tellers about it.

So, as a technologist it is important to protect yourself any way you can if you plan to use any technology at all.

Being ignorant around technology just doesn't work and isn't safe at all anymore. So, the more you know the safer you will be if you decide to use technology at all.

Also, I have learned never to ever put anything in regard to taxes online if I can still legally do this. Because anything financial you put online about yourself or your business you have to consider that it is public. This is a given the way technology presently is in the world.

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