[Alpacasite] Re: Hacking: Can Anyone Explain This?

Short "word only" passwords can be hacked with programs that try to
access your account multiple times by generating passwords and
trying each one. Assuming your password was either a common word or
something like a name or word that appeared on your webpage that is
most likely what happened. Or your "hint" was too simple (see
below). There is software on the web that p! eople can get to do
this.
Now that you have changed your password to something more complex
you're probably safe from this particular hacker and most novice
hackers.

Hints on passwords

Each password should be unique. Each password should contain letters
and numbers. If you can handle it, each should contain at least one
capital letter. If a hacker cracks one password and it's something
like the name of your dog, they will try to find more of your
accounts and try the same password there.

Wow … hundreds of unique passwords, how do you do that and keep
track?

Method 1
Keep a written list on a piece of paper. DO NOT keep this list
anywhere on your computer. Keep the paper in a secure place. You
don't want to have a home break in and have someone find your list
of passwords. A smart burglar will tidy up, conceal the break-in and
go sell your password list for far more than they could get for
stuff they might steal.

Method 1 with more security
Write the list on the paper with some form of encryption. The
simplest way to do this imbed a number (like the last four digits of
you mother's social security number) in every password and when you
write it on the paper use "number" as a place holder instead of the
actual number. Don't make your place holder the same number of
characters as the number. You can also use number1, number2, etc.
for more security as long as you can remember more than one number.
Use of one or more numbers is probably safe enough that you can now
keep the list on your computer as long as you don't keep the number
(s) anywhere on the computer.

Method 2
Use some convention to generate a unique password for each account.
Make more than one scheme. Give each one a meaningless name. Write
these on a piece of paper. Now when you enter your password on some
account and they ask you for a password "hint", you ent! er the name
of the scheme you generated this password with. Never enter a hint
that is easy to figure out because password hints are usually stored
on that host with no encryption.

Most firewalls will prevent the novice to mid-level hacker but the
really top notch hackers can get into almost any system. The more
and better your firewalls are, the more you are encouraging hackers
to "move on" and find an easier target.

Regards,
Greystone Manor
Gary Epp

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