Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords

[caseymoz]

46. Why are you talking like that's easy?

Everything that makes a password strong is what makes it difficult or impossible to remember, and if you're over 50-60 years old, and you have accounts on eighty different sites, you're going to have to come up with a system or have weak passwords and/or nine or ten passwords for the whole group.

Maybe computer geeks find memorizing random symbols an easy thing, if so, that's only because they spend what is or becomes their "work hours" at it. People who have other professions are using computer devices because those purportedly make things easier. If those professional people are supposed to memorize page after page of random keyboard symbols, they wouldn't be using computers very much and a lot of computer geeks would be out of their jobs.

Maybe you trained yourself for those memory feats in high school or college, but the rest of us don't have time doing anything like it. You'd better hope you never get a concussion or have electro-convulsive therapy, because that ability is very actually fragile.

My opinion is if passwords are that much of a hassle, computer geeks better stop being arrogant SOB's about it and start trying to make it easier.

I have a system for managing passwords. It's not conventional, but they're all strong, and I don't have them memorized.

And I'll just add: websites and companies should practice due diligence about this, too. For one thing, I don't know why anybody should get away with brute force password cracking. If websites would limit the number of times per minute log ins can be attempted to something closer to the speed a human being could type it, that would neutralize brute force attacks. I know it presents its own attack issue (you can close a user out of an account by sending attempts), so it's not that simple, but I'm sure there are solutions. They should be thinking along those lines.