People can circle jerk around, they can second guess, third guess, fourth guess what happened, who did it, how it happened, and why, but the truth is that a lot of the breaches of security in our 'connected world' are the result of stupid stuff users do. I worked at a huge university, in the financial aid department. They used those SecurID token generators cards to 'insure security' to the aid system. In my department, nearly everyone outside of the programming department would write their current user abusive IT generated password on a sticky note and place it on the back of their SecurID and then leave the freaking 'card' on their desks! Yeah! What security. Exactly, what security? I suggested, in a 'systems' meeting one morning (after a breach) that someone should go around and swap the token cards with other users to prove a point. I caught Holy Hell because later in that week, someone did just that. I got roasted in effigy by all of those people, and I didn't even do it...
Make stupid passwords. Use all lower case... Use your dog's name, kid's name, the year of some big event. I hacked an account once of a tea party retard. His password? '1776'. Yeah...
If this breach was because of a moderator, shame on them, but for the carpers and whiners, it's time to put your big boy/girl pants on and deal with security like it WAS the front door to your house. And moderators DOUBLY SO!
I was just as guilty as others too. My old password was 'macsrock'. I was somewhat surprised that it wasn't hacked up to now. Bad password I knew, but I was lazy... It was quick to type, easy to remember, and easily guessable... I had thought of changing it for a while. I like to try to keep passwords 'fresh' by changing them from time to time, and I hadn't changed this one in far too long (not that in this case it would matter). What was the exposure... I'm not an administrator/moderator. I don't reuse passwords on other accounts.
I did know someone with a 38 character password (so he said). That's just too anal, and I'm sure he was being a showoff because watching him login was like watching someone with Parkinson's disease on too much caffeine. He had backspaces and delete key presses embedded in his 'muscle memory' performance.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me'. I've been hacked before. I assume it will happen again. I try to avoid it as best as I can, and I have to put my big pants on and learn a new password.
So lets get back to talking macs and iPads and how some of us can tell what Steve Jobs would be thinking at this moment...
rant over...
