We've all heard the lectures about password security 100 times.  We know the basics like "don't use real words," "no names of your family members," and "the most common password is the word "god."  We've heard these things before and I think most of us have a false sense of security about our how secure our lives are.

These days, password cracking tools are freely available on the internet.  "Hackers" with almost no skills download powerful tools that rapidly attempt to guess a password using combinations of every word in the dictionary and every name.  Personal computers are becoming more and more powerful meaning that the time it takes to attempt these brute force password attempts becomes shorter and shorter.  Also, new password cracking algorithms such as rainbow tables are becoming accessible, even to people that don't know how to use them.

On top of that, most people use the same password for everything.  Their personal email accounts, their banks, their retirement accounts, their facebook etc.  If not exactly the same, then some variation of the same.  If a hacker guesses your password for one account, what kind of access to destroy your life do they have?

My final argument in favor of paranoia is this: Let's assume bank websites are secure.  Those institutions put a premium on defending their customers from hacking attempts or internet vulnerabilities, so let's just assume those places are hack-proof.  Addditionally, let's assume those sites are the one place where we keep a ridiculously long, very secure password that is different from every other website we use.  Are we safe in this scenario?  If I were a hacker, I would avoid bank sites assuming they're too hard.  Instead, I would go after an email site.  I would assume people keep less secure passwords for their email and therefore they are easier to get into.

What kind of information would a hacker have access to if he could gain full access to my email account.  There's not really anything sensitive in my email account by itself.  What I'm concerned about is how many other secure websites are tied to my email account.  For instance, could a hacker go to my bank website and click the "I forgot my password" link and have my bank send a new password to my now compromised email account?  What about my 401k website or my investment account.  The possibilites are enough to keep me up at night.

So, what can we do?

First, follow good password behaviors.

• Keep a separate, secure password for each website. 
  

I know how daunting this is, but there are tools to make it easier.  Keepass is a free, open-source password database that is a highly encrypted place to store passwords.  It will even auto-generate passwords that are as complicated as you want them to be.  You only have to remember one password to open your entire database of passwords.  It has the ability to copy and paste passwords so you don't have to type them and you can store the url's for important websites right in the app.  There are versions of keepass that you can keep on a usb thumb drive or even on your phone.  Another tool to make a secure life easier is Roboform - it has the same master password concept as keepass but will auto fill in website passwords once logged in.
 

• Don't use real words in your passwords

A trick to make this easier to live with is to substitute symbols or numbers for letters.  For instance, if you want your password to be the phrase "world wide web," subtitute the lettering for something similar to "W0rldw1dew3b!"  It's easy to remember and won't be found in any dictionary.  Remember to use a mixture of lowercase and capital letters as well.

You can also use passwords based on phrases that are important to you.  The phrase "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" would become something like "tLimsIsnw." 

Patterns on the keyboard are equally efficient.  For instance, start on the bottom row with the letter "z" and click through to the "m" and then do the same patter in reverse on the top row of keys.  Easy to remember, difficult to crack.

• Change your passswords periodically

I recommend changing passwords frequently, at least every 90 days.  As personal computers get faster and faster, this can help keep you ahead of any password cracking attempts.  The longer your password is, the longer it takes to crack.

• Keep your passswords at least 8 characters long

Hopefully, a good password policy will keep you out of heartache.  A little extra precaution goes a long way in this always connected world we live in.

Most all of my clients have either a BlackBerry or an iPhone.  And almost all of them use Microsoft Exchange.  This is not going to be a compare and contrast of who is better: the BlackBerry or the iPhone.  Of couse the iPhone has ActiveSync integrated into the OS if you have the Enterprise Data Plan from your Wireless Provider.  But now there is an equalizer, AstraSync enters the picture.  AstraSync allows for you to synchronize your BlackBerry with your Exchange server without having to Install BlackBerry Enterprise Server or its free counterpart.  AstraSync is like ActiveSync for the BlackBerry.  It allows you to get and recieve Exchange Email, it updates your calendar and your contacts, you can flag messages and add attatchments.  Pretty slick if you ask me.  Also, what I hear is that you do not have to upgrade your phone to the Enterprise Data Plan to be able to use it.  You can just get an unlimited data plan with your provider and away you go.  The software costs $49 per year and is well worth it when you look at your savings from not having to have an Enterprise Data Plan.  They also offer a free trial so that you can get your feet wet with to see if you really want it.  Just use the link below to give it a try.

http://www.astrasync.com/

I WANT an e-book reader and I must have one!  I am tired of all the books I buy and having to keep up with them.  I have broke down my thoughts and would love any comments to help me finally decide.

Kindle 

The kindle with its low price has me wanting to go that direction more than any other.  I know what type of books I like to read and amazon book store has most of the titles available for the Kindle.  The e-ink and battery life of the new generation is very attractive.  The big downside, I don't get all the cool features of the iPad.  Apps, web surfing and so on.

Nook

In my opinion, I feel like this is a very similar product to the Kindle.  Barnes and Nobles saw the success of the Kindle, tweaked and added some features and called in Nook.  To me, there just does not seem to be enough originality to make me want to chose one over the other.  Additionally, when I searched the BN site for books I like to read, less were available for the nook than the Kindle.  I welcome someone to prove me wrong on this one and bring up some points I have missed.

iPad

Total awesomeness.  I want it!  But wait, reports I have read say two things bad.  1. it's not that great of a platform to read books on.  2. because of the light it emits, the iPad is more like watching TV than reading a book.  Meaning that my sure fire way of getting sleepy, reading, now is going to keep me awake.  Apple's selection doesn't seem to be that great right now (at least for the books I like to read).  But it is Apple, that will change.  I can't remember that last time I bought music anywhere but iTunes.  We all know Steve Jobs wish is for the same thing to happen with books and media in general.  We are now saying, "what's a CD?", but Steve Jobs wants us saying "What's a book" or "What's a Magazine".      

Wrapping it up

What's makes this the hardest for me to decide is that I am cheap.  I want to be a cool kid and have an iPad.  But it's the most expensive option. My other issue in general is that a recent report shows that people read much slower on the "ebooks" than real paper.