My next Tech Beat article which should be published on Thursday in the Times-Standard is all about network insecurity. Among the issues I discuss is the poor application of passwords: Using common words or simple number strings instead of harder to crack strings of letters, numbers and punctuation. Now along comes this New York Times article that claims that the use of the password system is itself a big security hole no matter how complex the passwords are.
But the article doesn’t give really good reasons why the password login system is worthless. Of course, it can be circumvented any number of ways, but usually not without the unwitting help of the user such as succumbing to phising schemes. But being careful with passwords is all part of a comprehensive approach to network security, which I discuss. And the article doesn’t offer a good alternative except in theory.
So, practice safe Internet and use good passwords until something better comes along.