Hardcore gaming? Baby you ain’t seen nothing yet! (queue song)
Most of us probably know someone who plays a massive multiplayer online role playing game or MMORPG. Those who don’t play one simply don’t understand why it is so engrossing. Why all the time spent? Doing what appears to be the same dumb thing, over and over. A game that has without comparison taken MMORPG’s to a new level is World of Warcraft produced by Blizzard. Remember the old tale of the Pied Piper? Make no mistake MMORPG’s such as World of Warcraft is the modern day digital equivalent of this 16th century evil doer. Instead of leading children out of town, to their death, MMORPG’s are leading all ages away from the real world and into their small little closeted space of doom. Make no mistake; these games are very engrossing, mentally rewarding, and addictive. They supplement, and in some cases, completely replace the real world sense of work and accomplishment by using a much easier work / reward system modeled from the average daily life. The addiction to these types of games is no laughing matter. Many people have found the reward system in an MMORPG very satisfying as it psychologically triggers the same sense of work and payoff accomplishment we may otherwise feel from having done a good job building a deck or repairing a leaky faucet. A sense of team effort is created online, just as in the real world, as people must group up to accomplish objectives which carry far greater reward than any task they could accomplish individually. This grouping helps nurture a strong sense of team work aligned toward the common goal. Social and political structures are formed based on common ethics, morals, economic benefits, and so on. A dumbed down and simple reflection of the real world. For years, the politely non-impactful virtual currency of copper, silver, and gold has been used as common exchange to purchase and sell the virtual items such as swords, armor, potions, building materials, you name it, which have been the mental rewards for long hours of gaming.
For years I have been expecting to see real money officially used as an option to purchase the same virtual items and although I am slightly surprised that it took this long to become formally introduced I never doubted the day it would arrive. Since day one of MMORPG’s you could trade items from player to player and because of this a black market was created overnight. Gold was immediately available to purchase through third party sites where payment is cold hard cash. The producer of the games quickly declared this a violation of the (quickly revised) end user license agreement (EULA) as it ‘unfairly’ upset the virtual economy inherent to the work / reward balance of the virtual economy. However, the Pandora’s box now open, the real reason they declared this a violation of their newly worded EULA is because they weren’t the escrow platform providing the transaction. They weren’t the middleman. Very soon a new game by Blizzard, Diablo 3, will be released which has the ability to natively accommodate fiat currency. As the escrow platform they (Blizzard) will take a cut, currently based on a flat fee to conduct the transaction. This officially opens up a huge number of problems. I don’t mention this in a negative way; just stating. A few games such as Second Life have had a virtual item to fiat currency relationship for quite some time, however, a main stream MMORPG has yet, until now, been willing to step into this level of economic complexity.
MMORPG’s are enormously time consuming, engrossing, and psychologically rewarding as I stated earlier. Now, with real money involved in the virtual economy the countless hours of game play may be easily justified. A few years from now your 15 year old son or daughter could be making hundreds or thousands of dollars per month holed up in their bedroom. Or worse, they could be losing the same amount which would be most swiftly deducted from the credit card on file. If you add real money to the game, haven’t you just created a job? A job where you just play a game all day to earn real money. This will lead to interesting philosophical discussions such as the value of work done. If I get an item in the game and sell it for $1000 then spend the $1000 on improving my virtual character where is the real economic value? The game producer as the venue for the transactions will make $5, for argument sake. If that item took you 10 gaming hours to get and the person buying the item took 40 hours to make $1000 then from a limited scope I may argue that it took 50 working hours combined to make $5 as the merchandise doesn’t exist in the real word, yet real word time and money was brought to the table.
Many people are very excited about real money being introduced officially into their gaming world as it creates a sense of legitimacy regarding their countless wasted hours of gaming. The age of the professional gamer, available to the masses is upon us. The massive economic ecosystems we see around professional sports, sooner or later, will look very similar with virtual world gaming.
My point of writing this: Be careful with your gaming habits if you are a MMO gamer. If you are someone who spends a good amount of time in MMO’s you will probably double that time spent when a real monetary system adds more ‘gravity’ to the virtual world. Be aware of that potential lure and define now how you will spend your time before holing up and giving in to countless hours of gaming. If you are a parent whose kids play MMO’s talk to them about their gaming habits. Find out why they like to play so often and set hard limits on the time allowed. Excess gaming with real money is analogous to getting paid to be drunk as it may be just as mentally and physically impairing and damaging in the long run.
No power, No Internet, no problem!
Winter hit hard this week with snow, then freezing rain, then more snow. What struck me as rather entertaining was the fact that earlier this week not one meteorologist forecasted any freezing rain at all yet all the news sites were praising themselves on the accuracy and timing of the snow. Ironically, the freezing rain made the two to fourteen inches of snow (depending on where you live) look like child’s play. Same blunder happened last year when an early afternoon snow followed by a sudden drop in temperature turned a forty minute commute into a four hour commute! Since I started flying small planes and riding my motorcycle I have paid very close attention to the weather and one simple conclusion has held true. The weather forecasts are dead wrong twenty seven out of thirty days, on average. This ratio is not delivered off the cuff. I actually keep track. Early this summer I talked with one of my clients, who correlates meteorological data for a number of news agencies. My question to him was; how can these weather reports give five day forecasts when they can’t even get the next day right? He looked at me like I was nuts. His response was that he only gives them the raw data of what is happening right now and the computer modeling of where that was trending. He then went on to say that you can’t predict the weather with any degree of certainty three days out. Two if the weather is very stable, at best. My naivety was removed. Who watches a weather report if all they say is, “we have no clue what the weather will be.”? They need the eyeballs because we’re all suckers wanting to know on Monday what plans to make for Saturday. So, rather than being factual with high probabilities, they just spew garbage while projecting strong conviction and confidence. Weather men/women would make great politicians.
This brings up the question, how do you remain operational when faced with power outages and no Internet service and how can you plan for this in advance?
First and most obvious is electrical power. This is our obvious foundation upon which all else, technology wise, is built. A simple 4000 watt gas generator you can wheel out of the garage more than fits the need. Here is a link to one of many that would suffice. Next is how to connect this into your breaker panel so that you may manually transfer your incoming power from the grid to your generator. Here is a link to a transfer case. So for $400 we have the basic equipment to switch power to your generator capable of running your power needs for roughly twelve hours on one tank of gas. Any qualified electrician will have no problem quickly adding this to your existing wiring. I would estimate around two hours of labor to accomplish this, however, this is just an estimate and your exact needs might make this setup take a bit more time. Once this is in place, you need to define what essential circuits are needed to remain on while running the generator. The above mentioned setup is not capable of running your entire electrical needs. However, the generator would be more than adequate to power one to five computers and the related network and printer needs in a small office environment. Large appliances such as washing machines, refrigerators, and electric water heaters would want to remain off at the circuit breaker until power from your grid is restored and you have transferred back. I am not an electrician so please seek the advice of a profession electrician when determining what load can be placed on the generator.
The next key part is a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply). A UPS should be on every computer, printer, and network equipment under any circumstance. A small UPS, great for the network equipment starts around $60. Linked here is one I would recommend. For a desktop computer I would recommend this one, which has a larger battery capable of supporting one or many monitors. Also, the desktop UPS will have A USB and/or serial cable. This is important as it lets your desktop shutdown automatically if you aren’t at your computer and the battery supply is running low. The single best ability of a UPS is to provide clean power. Very important when power goes out and/or back on as the spikes or surges play havoc on sensitive electronic equipment. Keep in mind, a laptop already has a built in UPS, its own battery, which make them very convenient in this situation. The UPS will provide you enough time to power down safely or get your generator running.
Finally, the last issue is Internet service. Cable broadband service, although very cost effective, is very susceptible to outage as most of the cabling is above ground and hanging lower on the same utility pole with the electrical power making it very likely to be torn down from falling trees and branches. For myself, I use a mobile 3G/4G hotspot serviced through Verizon. Looking down the street today, in my small town, I counted four lines down. However, with my main Internet service down, I am still happily running along with about 1.2Mbps download and 500Kbps upload. More than enough for web browsing, email, and posting this article. I am fairly certain it will be at least another day, looking at all the wires lying on the sidewalk, before my cable internet service is restored. By utilizing a slightly more advanced router I am able to have it fail over to my Verizon wireless Internet service when required. Keep in mind, any of the cellular carriers could be used I just happen to use and like Verizon’s offering.
In conclusion, a small generator, transfer switch, and wireless Internet service more than capably keeps me and my business running in full stride without breaking the bank. A solution like this is great for those who have a small office / home office and require computing and internet service running all the time so that you may provide the great service your customers have come to rely on.
Note: At the time of this writing my city is without power and the cable internet service is completely down, but I am not!
TV, without the price, without the commercials, with many more features!
About five years ago I switched from cable TV to satellite based DirecTV. Promotions aside, this changed my bill from approximately $60 a month to approximately $45 a month. However, this also meant that I needed to sign another lengthy agreement which I perfectly understand as the company needed to offset the cost of my “free install” and equipment. What really frustrated me was the amount of commercials in a standard 30 min. or 60 min. show. Most 30 min. episodes are actually around 23 min. and most 60 min. episodes are around 43 to 46 min. in length. The worst offenders leading the pack are football games. One game I watched with a stopwatch. I started the stopwatch every time the game was actually on the screen and stopped when commercials. After 35 min. I was amazed to realize that 18 min. were commercial out of the 35 min. watched. I know I am in the minority with this next comment; the last football game I attended live was the Seahawks playing on their home field in the Kingdom (I know, a very long time ago). Steve Largent was wide receiver and Brian Bosworth was playing center, bad shoulder and all. Now you may call me naïve but what happened next, for me, left me feeling most disrespected. All of a sudden everyone stood around, players on both sides talked with each other. Probably asking how their wives or girlfriends or sons and daughters were doing. The massive speakers hanging down from the center of the concrete roof were playing pop goes the weasel followed by the announcer reminding people of the overpriced “refreshments” available behind section C and A. In my naivety having seen this for the first time one clear opinion came into my mind which I still strongly feel the same way today. That is, this isn’t football this is a joke. I didn’t go through all the time and effort getting here to watch a bunch of people stand around waiting for commercials. I was a young kid then but obviously opinionated already. Sometime later I told my dad, who had brought me to the game, I just wasn’t interested in football at all. That wasn’t the truth but at my age I felt it was the easiest way to voice my disdain for commercial timeouts. I digressed slightly however the point I want to make is that I was told at a young age to accept a very disruptive situation; no thank you. Shifting back to the near present, I moved away from Comcast for my TV service toward Direct TV which boasted greater selection and fewer commercials. All of a sudden Direct TV started running the end credits of the closing show with the opening scenes of the next show. Are you kidding me? The episode has a fixed time so it was clear this was done solely to increase the amount of commercial time while also attempting to not lose ‘eyeballs’ by people getting up to grab a beer, use the restroom, make a sandwich, etc. That was it, I was fed up. I called up DirectTV and told them I as cancelling effective immediately. I got the usual scripted crap with generic apologies and understanding to my problem with the service, which they had yet to even ask me about said problem. Finally, when asked why I was dissatisfied with the service I told them about the split windows credits ‘development’ and also asked for a refund based from the premise that I had switched to their service because there were supposed to be fewer commercials, not more! Well, the polite rep. on the other end wisely said, “I understand.” I could tell she was searching for a response in how to proceed. However, this situation was outside script, at the time, and I quickly parted ways. Then I got busy researching. At this point in time the major networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC started releasing prime time episodes on their website for viewing with one 30 sec. commercial. So, my TV watching now shifted to watching a few shows online with only a few minutes wasted watching the same commercial four or five times. Then Hulu showed up on the scene. Great, I don’t have to run around to the different networks. Under one digital roof I could now find most prime time shows available usually about one week after their initial airing date. Most importantly I was spending zero on TV specific services, just Internet service. I could also watch the show when I wanted to, ‘pulling’ it down as it is known, rather than having the show ‘pushed’ to me at a specific time not of my choosing. Then Netflix starts streaming a portion of their movie and TV episode library which further peaked my interest. The popularity of Netflix streaming content eventually leads to Netflix’s failed attempt to create a separate division for streaming services. Hulu also created a monthly priced service for viewing newer and more complete content. As high speed Internet services have increased in total speed per dollar spent so has the type of content available. One last piece to this puzzle of getting better content at a much lower price was when terrestrial based wireless TV broadcast shifted from analog to digital. Within a short time, local TV antenna services has gone from crappy ghosted video to the best high definition video possible!
Many who are tech savvy have been assembling home theater personal computers (HTPC) which take full advantage of the different services now available. With a digital tuner card, antenna on the roof, decent Internet connection, anyone today is able to have, in my opinion, a far superior TV and general media experience than any one of the traditional media providers could possibly match at a price that has no or very little monthly cost. How?
Windows 7 comes with an application which is a true unsung hero; Windows Media Center. This application, along with a good PC based digital tuner card, provides your local channels over the air. The digital broadcast is excellent and usually available in high definition with up to 1080 vertical lines of resolution. The other streaming sites I use today are Hulu and Amazon. There are a number of others available but I won’t speak of that which I don’t use. With both Netflix, and Hulu Plus, I pay only $14 per month for “TV” service and the best part; only Hulu has commercials which only run for 1 minute per commercial break. For recording prime time shows, I use Microsoft’s Media Center which downloads the TV guide and has a very user friendly interface to setup single or complete series recordings. If one wants to get fancy there are tools which remove commercials from the recorded content, however, I find it just as easy to hit forward five or six times and I’m right back to the show seconds later.
So, now that we are in 2012, still a bad economy, it’s about time you experience this superior way to view TV and movies without paying the overpriced subscription fees.
Following are some links for the equipment needed which I mentioned above. Mind you, this isn’t dead simple, like plugging in a TV and turning it on, however, I am convinced it is well worth giving serious consideration. Also search online for “How to setup a HTPC” to learn more about the many possibilities you have been missing!
- Take any new low end PC, which should run very quiet so it does not compete with your media’s sound.
- Add a digital TV tuner card.
- Add a wireless keyboard and mouse.
- Install a fanless hardware accelerated video card.
- Install Windows 7 Home Premium.
- For the external Digital antenna I would highly recommend this one. Keep in mind your distance from the broadcast tower. Closer in, smaller antenna. Further away, larger directional.
Although this setup will probably set you back $600 to $700 consider how much you have been paying for TV over the past 2 to 5 years and this cost should seem very justified. This would be a good project for anyone technology minded. If computers aren’t your thing, then send me an email. Be happy to advise and help you toward a great solution!
Apologies later approach to collecting your private data.
Over the last five plus years of technology innovation we have seen new services pop up which no one was able to predict. Most of this revolves around the creation and evolution of social media services. Myspace quickly set the stage for a ‘gold rush’ interest in the new (digital) country of creating your social circles online. Soon ‘everyone’ was hopping on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. As veneer, this looks great in providing a powerfully simple venue to let your friends, family, and co-workers in on your private life in what appeared to be a safe way of communicating amongst trusted recipients. Also, in the last five years mobile phones have dramatically increased in capability now offering capabilities equal to laptops. Applications can now take your cell phone location and transmit this information to basically anyone, anytime. Keystrokes on your cell phone are being logged and uploaded to databases designed to comb through the data and individually profile your activity.
A few examples:
FACEBOOK
(Posted by Joshua Johnson)
In December 2009, Facebook changed its website so certain information that users may have designated as private – such as their Friends List – was made public. They didn’t warn users that this change was coming, or get their approval in advance.
- Facebook represented that third-party apps that users’ installed would have access only to user information that they needed to operate. In fact, the apps could access nearly all of users’ personal data – data the apps didn’t need.
- Facebook told users they could restrict sharing of data to limited audiences – for example with “Friends Only.” In fact, selecting “Friends Only” did not prevent their information from being shared with third-party applications their friends used.
- Facebook had a “Verified Apps” program & claimed it certified the security of participating apps. It didn’t.
- Facebook promised users that it would not share their personal information with advertisers. It did.
- Facebook claimed that when users deactivated or deleted their accounts, their photos and videos would be inaccessible. But Facebook allowed access to the content, even after users had deactivated or deleted their accounts.
- Facebook claimed that it complied with the U.S.- EU Safe Harbor Framework that governs data transfer between the U.S. and the European Union. It didn’t.
APPLE (Posted by Brian X. Chen)
- The privacy scare stems from a discovery by two data scientists, who revealed Wednesday that iPhones and iPads contain an unencrypted file called “consolidated.db,” which has been tracking and recording your location data in a log accompanied with time stamps for the past 10 months.
- Apple is collecting information about nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi access points whenever you request current location information. Sometimes it will also do this automatically when you’re using a location-based service, such as a GPS app.
- The file used to store the geo-location information (consolidated.db) is completely unencrypted making it very easy for someone to grab this information.
Android based Smartphones: Google
(Posted by Knowlton Thomas)
- The software is a silent background app that logs your email, phone history, GPS location, SMS data and numbers, CPU, memory, and network information, and more. This is designed to be for HTC on a need-only basis. It’s also designed to be anonymous.
- A security flaw that left author Artem Russakovskii “speechless,” this pre-installed software actually includes a gaping hole through which third-party apps can access your information without permission. Moreover, malware can walk right into your Android device and have a party.
- According to the Android Police, HTC originally ignored inquiries about the issue, and has only began looking into the situation after the concern went public.
The list could go on and on, but I think you get the general theme here. This is a classical “apologize later” approach. Or in other words, willful intent to distribute private information without consent. I am not a lawyer so I won’t try and address a legal perspective. However, let’s look at this from a business ethics perspective. This is no different than your bank having a back door for anyone (willing to pay) to have access into your private information; minute by minute. This is a subversive method to sell your data shrouded in an “End User License Agreement” (EULA) to claim generically that ‘anything goes’ while also not claiming publically to expose your private data to anyone.
It’s funny and disgusting how every company, once exposed, claims this is a security flaw. No, this is willful programming with intent to obtain private information without consent.
At this point, across the board, I can’t give you advice on keeping your data private if you use social media platforms and/or smartphones. Let me create a scenario. Your young daughter waits for someone to pick them up on the corner of A and 5th Street every day. What happens if that simple bit of information made it into the wrong hands? Your daughter waits there every day passing the time by using the smartphone you bought her to stay in contact; to stay safe.
I will leave you with that, sorry.
- Mark Muehlbauer
How do you arrive at your technology buying descions?
Question from a client:
Assuming you haven’t purchased all these computers and devices yourself,
how do you arrive at your buying decisions and recommendations?
You are correct in that I don’t have hands on experience
with everything I recommend. Here is how
I go about it.
- The first and most important is to fully
qualify you, the client. Let’s use a laptop for example. The best approach I have found is to walk
through everything you do and want to do with a laptop in your business
day. Often I hear laptops being discussed from the perspective of what the laptop can do. I find this completely backwards. Laptops are like cars in that some cars are sports cars, some are off road, and so on. You must first look at the type of “driving” you want to do with your laptop.
- Get realistic with a technology purchase.
A good business laptop starts at $500.
Expecting to pay less, again, like a car, won’t go the distance you were hoping for. On the other hand, spending $2200 is a huge waste of money. At the upper end you are buying cutting edge technology that is manufactured in limited quantity thereby paying through the nose for it. Vendors always try and position themselves with salesmanship that directly implies “this is the last
__________ (fill in the blank) you will ever need!” As far as buying technology related devices consider how you would feel about a $2200 laptop four years from now when everyone can buy over twice the laptop you have for $500 to $800. Consider a technology purchase as a permanent lease that you keep trading up models with. Let’s take two imaginary clients, Linda and John. Both
require laptops. John buys a top of the line, state of the art $2200 laptop because he is tired of constantly wasting
money every couple years on a new laptop that claims it will “do the laundry” but doesn’t. Linda buys a $650 mainstream business laptop. Two years later new screen display technology, faster integrated wireless connectivity, and Windows 8 with some
really productive features is now main stream. Linda, in 2012 according to Moore’s Law (which has held true), will be able to buy another laptop for roughly the same price of $650 which is now as powerful yet with more features
than John’s $2200 laptop purchased in 2010. Continued 2 years later in 2014 Linda can easily justify upgrading again
in comparison to John’s laptop cost. However, the laptop she is now looking at for $650 is at least 2.5 times more powerful in every way than John’s initial $2200 laptop. Linda has now spent only $1950, still $250 less than John, over 4 years, and has two more laptops than John whereby the second and third laptops are more powerful than John’s. Furthermore, Linda now has computers for a staff of three while John is now brooding over why his expensive laptop still doesn’t “do the laundry”. If this was a car and the performance, handling, fuel economy, comfort, etc., doubled every two years would you buy a car? If your business relied on that car as an integral tool to compliment your abilities to outperform your competitionhow may this new perspective change your buying habits?
- Find reviews and problems. After qualifying the needs and setting a price range I then browse the internet for
reviews and problems. Usually I use Amazon and Cnet; reading opinions and ratings of the product. However, this can
get a bit tricky. I have noticed fraudulent hype created by groups of people (probably paid) placing a new
product high on a pedestal. Manufacturers today know that a lot of people purchase a product solely
based on the number of high marks given and therefore take advantage of a review system to artificially inflate the perception of high customer satisfaction. This applies to everything, not just the laptop example. I first noticed this abuse on a book my wife was interested in buying. Day one of the release on Amazon there wereover fifty rave reviews followed by two that clearly were very disappointed with the book and had great reasons to back up their claims. How could a book have these many five star reviews (by customers) only a few hours after it was publically available? I look very closely at the substance of the reviews both
good and bad to help draw an accurate assessment.
-
Refund / Exchange Policy. For general technology devices I use Amazon. I consider them a policy escrow company. Any third party vendor selling through Amazon must abide by Amazon’s polices not the vendors own policy. I have had personal experience with Amazon holding a vendors’ feet to the fire over a $30 purchase (Fiber Optic Audio Source Selector) that was dead on arrival. The vendor tried to “snow me” with their own return policy stating that I must go through the manufacturer. For a
DOA device, I think not. One email to Amazon and I had a new unit mailed with overnight postage, probably costing the
vendor as much as the unit itself, and they didn’t even want the defective unit returned. Other sources I have been very
happy with but have not exercised the return/exchange process are www.buy.com, www.newegg.com, and www.tigerdirect.com.
I hope this will help with your purchasing choices regarding technology
and how to research and purchase the best products to suite your needs.
-Mark Muehlbauer.
Netflix customers on the move.
Regarding Netflix and their shifting business model.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/10/tech/web/netflix-qwikster-reaction/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
The thing I take away from this is how consumers play a much
more impactful role today. With social sites and forums a subscriber /
user base can quickly polarize toward a conclusion; good or bad.
Therefore a subscriber base, in Netflix’s case, realizes
quickly they are far from alone regarding their complaints. Companies can
no longer sit in board rooms making unilateral decisions based exclusively on
the bean counting. Adoption or repulsion seems to be much more aggressive
now and a new dominant marketing force based on grass roots discussion is
quickly become the prevailing means.
Keeping in mind this is Netflix which has a great
service. If this had been a company with completely equal competition of
services, then we may have seen a mass exodus toward that competitor.
Interesting times. . . .
-Mark Muehlbauer.
What is your data backup solution?
Business Computer Consulting provides comprehensive onsite and offsite backup solutions. With business needs and requirements leaning more and more toward digital storage you need solutions flexible enough to meet your current and growing demands. A data backup is a constant maintenance process. A onetime setup with the assumption that it is working is not an acceptable solution. When looking at a great data backup solution the following should be considered.
- Is the backup sending reports upon success or failure to someone who is acknowledging and taking correct action accordingly?
- Is your backup solution disaster recovery time line acceptable relative to the financial loss of time and business?
- Do you have the need for an off-site backup as well as on-site and if so is this process automated? (Yes, it should be.)
- Do you have a complete backup image of your workstation(s) ready to import or will you have to spend hours reconfiguring all the 3rd party applications to the exact way they used to work?
- Many companies, working in insurance, medical, and financial areas think that all of their important data is online. Have you clearly identified if any important data resides on your hard drive vs. online and how to backup this up. (For example: Internet Favorites, Outlook contacts, tasks, calendars, application settings, passwords automatically entered, files on your desktop.)
Setup an appointment with one of our consultants to have a free review of your backup systems. You have nothing to lose, other than your data.
-Mark Muehlbauer
Let’s talk passwords: What’s yours?
With the amount of online services today it becomes daunting to remember all the different passwords, their rotation in a given period of time, and how to make them complex enough to avoid compromise. We all remember things by association and therefore create passwords based on all things relevant in our day to day world. Most of the time the following are used in password creation.
- Pet’s name.
- Family member’s name.
- Birthdays and anniversaries.
- Social Security numbers.
- Favorite sports and hobbies.
Although in combination it appears this approach would be adequate if you were targeted for password hacking let’s review how this would be done.
The list above references 8 unique items which represent a total of 16,777,216 possible passwords based on first glance. However, we think of our loved ones, our pets, and our personal information much more than anything else. Therefore, a co-worker, virus, and/or social media phishing software can easily learn all the information above as quickly as you can say “no”. Hacking software starts by knowing the probability that pet names and birthdays are the most likely combination, followed by special dates with social security numbers. If we take just your pet name and your full birthday (month, day, year) then we are reduced to only 256 combinations of password. Furthermore, we generally only pair two memorable thoughts to create one password followed by thinking we are clever by converting vowels to numbers such as O to 0 and E to 3. This is no problem for hacking software as it also knows, with password complexity requirements you usually have 8 characters where you must have one capital letter and one number. So a lot people, annoyed at this requirement create a password of <Pet-name> with a date or simply a number incrementing from 1 to 9 every time a password change is forced upon them. This complexity requirement, although appearing to create complexity further defines and reduces the password type. Odds are most of us will create a password just eight characters long starting with a capital letter and ending with a number. The ‘stuff’ in the middle will most likely be related to one of the items I mentioned in the list above. This results in creating software to automatically attempt logins on your account whereby the username is known (usually the email address) while the alternate information is placed in combination to continually attempt access to your secured login. If this doesn’t speak to yourself directly I am sure you can list a few people off the top of your head that fall into this method of password creation.
Every week I work with someone who has had their password compromised which can be embarrassing if their account is now sending out sexual content, costly with respect to the down-time, and further costly respective to my billable time to find the problem and repair the damage.
I propose you start thinking about what I call the anti-thought. Let’s try it as you read. Think of something you really hate or generally have negative feelings toward. Might be a color, car, school bully, company, person, etc. Now think of an activity you have never done in your life and know you never will. Finally, put four numbers in your head which you generally don’t like. Got it? As I wrote this I was thinking of the following:
- Color I hate: Puke green.
- Car I don’t care for: Volvo.
- School bully: Richard.
- Company I hate: Sage.
- Activity I have never done and never will: Sniper.
- Number or set of number I don’t like: 5137.
Resulting password: pukeSage51. My thought process was to combine three of these that strike me as more memorable due to a special dislike for each. This consists of 8 characters and two numbers. A brute force attempt to hack this would be very, very difficult, and socially engineering this out of me relative to everything I have online would simply not be possible.
These are honestly things I dislike, hate, or generally don’t care for. However, the beauty of this is that I am not really compromising much of anything by publically declaring this as there are a number of colors, cars, people, and companies that I dislike. Also, along with being a sniper, there are a large number of other things I will never do because I fundamentally dislike the resultant activity. So, as you formulate your concoction of things you would never do, like, or think about (aside from now) realize that there are many possibilities. However, you only have one or a few pets, family, friends, and so on. Furthermore if I tell you I love chocolate (go figure) can you tell me one thing I don’t like based on that answer? No. However, if I love chocolate what would I never ever eat with it? This methodology creates more variables to guess at than any computer, social engineering scheme, or even friends and family could ever possibly guess at. Your closest friends, family, and co-workers will never ever guess your password, but more importantly, hacking software working on known probabilities will be rendered completely useless.
Start by using a simple three thought “anti-thought”. Country or location you would never visit, age you were where you felt was the hardest time of your life, and a language you would never dream of learning. For myself this would look like Cherynobl19Swahili. The key to this line of thought is to keep your anti-thought, that you land on, to yourself. So, your internal dialogue would be, “my password is the location I would never go plus the hardest year of my life plus a language I would never learn”. This is your own key to remembering your password and will create a socially safe password for the rest of your life. When it comes down to it the anti-thought approach to creating your own password is fairly safe to say, unhackable.
-Mark Muehlbauer.
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