password

The time has come for every Internet denizen to take a stand against the worst atrocity (and probably the biggest problem) on the Web: vertical videos. Big thanks to the puppets in this PSA spreading the word about Vertical Video Syndrome.

You can blame Flip video cameras, the ubiquity of videos shot with an iPhone, or just the tech-ignorance masses, but it has to stop. With the help of Ariel, Richard, and Joseph on today's episode, we all hope to put an end to the vertical video travesty.… Read more

Update, 1:23 p.m. PT: Updated with LinkedIn's confirmation.

News of millions of LinkedIn passwords leaked through a user on a Russian forum is scary enough. It's important not to let the situation get worse. Be proactive about protecting your other accounts, particularly if you have the same password for all your accounts.

If that's the case, it's time to change them, Jeremiah Grossman of WhiteHat Security said in an e-mail to CNET.

He offered a few tips, via a blog post on how not to get hacked on the Web.

"You wouldn't … Read more

Update 1:11 p.m. PT: LinkedIn confirms that passwords were "compromised."

So far, LinkedIn has come up empty on the password leak reported earlier today.

The company's latest tweet simply states that "our team continues to investigate, but at this time, we're still unable to confirm that any security breach has occurred. Stay tuned here."

Assuming the initial report was authentic, LinkedIn's failure to find any sign of compromise in its system doesn't jibe with the number of people on Twitter who say they've found their own hashed LinkedIn passwords … Read more

Update 1:08 p.m. PT: LinkedIn confirms that passwords were "compromised."

LinkedIn users could be facing yet another security problem.

A user in a Russian forum says that he has hacked and uploaded almost 6.5 million LinkedIn passwords, according to The Verge. Though his claim has yet to be confirmed, Twitter users are already reporting that they've found their hashed LinkedIn passwords on the list, security expert Per Thorsheim said.

LinkedIn revealed through its own tweet that it's looking into reports of stolen passwords, and it advised users to stay tuned for more information.… Read more

Sooner than you think, the Holy Grail of mobile password security could land on your phone thanks to new tech from Nuance called Dragon ID.

Dragon ID is a voice biometrics system from the same company behind the voice-recognition tech in Dragon Dictate for PCs and Dragon Go for iOS and Android. It promises a hands-free login system, but Nuance isn't putting it out in an app.

Instead, it's licensing the technology to manufacturers so they can build it into their phones.

"We're going to be pretty aggressive with our longstanding OEM partners, so we certainly … Read more

This might make those of advanced years feel a little smug.

Which, those in their 20s who are desperate to find a job and pay off student loans might say, the over-55s have been for at least 20 years.

This new source of smugness, however, comes from research at the University of Cambridge. For it showed that the password strength of Yahoo accounts belonging to the over-55s was twice that of, say, teens.

The New Scientist passes this information along and offers that the researchers concluded that most people have weak passwords.

The computer scientist who led the research, Joseph Bonneau, … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week readers wrote in with concerns about password and data security when sending computers in for repair, Boot Camp installations not loading after running disk verification and repair routines, and the feasibility of putting third-party utilities on the OS X Lion recovery HD partition. We welcome alternative approaches and views from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, post them in the comments!

Question: Password and data security during computer repairs MacFixIt reader Jerry asks:

One of the great intellectual new talents of this century has been training one's mind to remember all one's passwords.

Because writing them down always seems so very dangerous.

However, it seems that Best Buy's Geek Squad is rather keen for you to write down your password and, um, pass it to them.

Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin says he experienced this revealing phenomenon when he shopping with his brother for a new computer at Best Buy in Scottsdale, Ariz.

As his brother completed his purchase of a fine HP Windows 7 machine, Brodkin says his brother … Read more

In a better world, vulnerable accounts like banks, medical records, e-mail, and cloud drives would be protected with biometric systems. A swipe of a finger or a retina scan would allow access to your most important data.

Alas, eight-or-more-character passwords still dominate Web service log-ins. Anything from your investment portfolio to your Facebook account is simply accessed with an e-mail address (or username) and a few characters.

Yet, many Internet users continue to use easy-to-guess passwords like "123456," "qwerty," or their first names. Even worse, users repeat the same password (or a variation of one) across … Read more