In the news: Gawker compromised, passwords leaked

[Stratadrake]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11998648

Gawker -- a popular gossiping website -- was recently hacked, and the intruders successfully leaked a long list of account usernames/passwords. Subsequently, some of these passwords were used to crack various Twitter, Facebook, et al. accounts, although there are no reports of any serious or widespread damage.

Among them, the top 10 most common passwords turned out to be these:
* "123456"
* "password"
* "12345678"
- "lifehack"
* "qwerty"
* "abc123"
* "111111"
* "monkey"
- "consumer"
* "12345"

Items marked with a * are considered invalid on FAC due to internal rules deciding what is and is not allowed in a user password.

It's pretty common for people to use everyday words in passwords, but this is hardly an effective strategy for deterring hackers. Though no password is 100.0% secure, remember the standard tips:

- Passwords are case sensitive. Mixing uppercase and lowercase letters makes it more difficult to crack since you need to not only get the spelling right, but capitalization too.
- Avoid using common words. "Password" is the infamous example here.
- Mix numbers and letters. Even a baseline 1337 translation of common words (e.g. "difficult" -> "d1ff1cul7") makes a password tougher to crack.
- Spacing and punctuation matters too. If you can make your password out of a [i]phrase[/i] instead of a single word, it'll be tougher to guess.

Obviously, making a password difficult to guess can make it more difficult to [i]remember[/i] in the first place. Finding a way to remember your password is up to you.
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[SweetxinsanityxSarah]

-facepalms at the "password" and counting PWs.-

Oh thats soo sad I cant think of a witty remark, someone help me out here.
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Our life is made by the death of others...
~Leonardo Da Vinci

[aquaeevee]

i oneupped when i read that i "facefax"d then loled till my eye twitched at the fact that people cannot be bothered to have inginuity. i memorized the number on the side of a yogurt container for ONE of my password on a site i cannot even remember if its still even working
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with this frame of mind you better pray i never get a point of view gun, too late i just did. just pray i dont aim at you then!