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Comment by crocowhile | Hacker News Reader

> (I have a second copy of that sheet left with a friend in an envelope)

I love jgc but here he's making the same mistake most people make when they speak about security: assuming all readers have the same need for security and run the same risks. They don't. There is no point for my mom to adopt this system, it's way overkilled for her. (I think there's no point for me either).

One needs to explain to users two things: the first is that there is a big difference between being A target and being THE target. If you are just A target, picking one password for each website you subscribe to is more than enough. If you are THE target, then people will get to you, no matter how secure you think you are.

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I somewhat agree, but when mass hacks occur it opens people with poor passwords up to hackers because they've got all the time in the world to see whose accounts they can get into.

BTW Do you use the same password on your Gawker account elsewhere?

As long as the password is unique, it doesn't even matter. Sure, it should be unique yet not revealimg a pattern ("goofy" is ok, "gawker" is not) but there is no need for the user to pass crypto 101.

This for those 1.5m that were just A target; Nick Denton, OTH, was THE target and it was just matter of time for him to get pwned.

>BTW Do you use the same password on your Gawker account elsewhere?

I had to check the other day. I opened that account to leave one comment on lifehacker (that was never approved, actually) and then forgot about it. Turns out the password was safe enough but my mistake there was to use an email address I cared about.

Now I have a less important email address and a supergenpass for everything, except gmail/facebook/dropbox and the other things I care about, for which I have better passwords.

Nevertheless, your Gawker password was crackable with JtR.

I usually have two passwords: A stupid one that I only use on stupid sites, and a good one that I use on crucial ones (Gmail, Amazon, bank). There's no relationship between the good and bad passwords, so I feel more confident that I'll be unaffected by data breaches.

I checked the torrent and I guess I never made a Gawker account.

The problem with that plan is that one day you will learn that someone who works at Google, or Amazon, or your bank or some other "crucial" site has captured millions of username/password combinations and tried them at all the other crucial sites.

I like that giving the paper to a friend provides an easy way for a friend to be able to access his accounts in case of a tragedy.

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