Funny Pictures. Safe For Work, and Safe For The Kids Too.

Just saying that some people prefer to believe that they can alter reality (even mathematical reality) by the shear force of their personalities. I don't know if that's a compliment or an insult either lol. Depends on how emotionally attached you are to reality, I suppose lol.

/edit I know this is way off topic but I just want to digress, because whenever I think about that, it drives me insane (I'm sorry, but I try to live in reality -- it's where I keep all my stuff).

Anyway, this was when I worked at a collection agency -- we'd receive data from this government bureau about debts, and those debts were broken down into various subtotals -- principal, interest, late fees, various penalties, credits, etc. There were about 6 different 'money buckets'. Now you might think that if you added up all the subtotals, subtracted out any past payments, etc. that the total should add up to what the person actually owed. Unfortunately, in about 75% of the cases, they did not. Note that previously, this government organization had been involved in a major scandal, well covered by the media, regarding various misdeeds involving (of course) money, and supposedly, they had recently cleaned house and fixed all of their problems (that's one of the reasons why they were wanting to use an outside agency).

The programmers on the other side of the fence were stubborn, but once I demonstrated to them using examples taken from their own database, they became believers themselves, and agreed with me that there was no way for us to resolve the problems on our side. However, their bureaucrats couldn't understand why we couldn't simply overlay our data with their own.

Now imagine if you owed the government some money, and you received a bill from a collection agency. Say the bill said that you owed $500 in principal and $30 in interest, but the total bill was $1500. How long do you think it would take for that individual to call his attorney?

Note that we eventually were forced to 'fire' them as a client -- that's after a year and a half's work on their behalf.

 

I'm not sure we're really on the same level here, Haldurson. I was being jokingly over-pedantic (though I'm no less correct, 2+2 can equal five, just for large values (>2.25) of two), I wasn't going into... uh... anything else.

 

There have been a lot of pictureless posts lately

Here, have a squidless deer:

 

And neither was he, if it's about this discussion. It's a simple "here's a reply, and while we're at it, here's that story of mine that I feel like telling people about because that will make me feel better" thing; a lot of people have such moments (not that there's anything wrong with it), and you can see it often on this forum with various people.

Edit: Also, that's the fastest "like" I ever got. Are you stalking me, Omni?

 

I will amend the OP to mandate a long winded story every once in a while if I must.

I for one like reading the stories too.

 

Well... Yes. I suppose I am. Nah. I just spam likes very very fast. It is a special talent.

I just now noticed the edit while looking for more posts to like. I am installing GW2 right now.

 

The following is totally off topic. Any semblance to real people, places or events is purely coincidental.

Nightnab: Well, you're banning has come up for review and we've decided to restore your posting privilidges conditional to your good behavior.

OmniBlanco: Meaning?

Nightnab: You have to like five hundred posts that materially contribute to the health of the forums and discourage general assholery within one month of your account being unbanned.

OmniBlanco: And if I don't I get banned again?

Nightnab: If you don't, you find out how the squid gets into the deer in a very hands-on fashion. Only it won't be your hands that are involved.

OmniBlanco: Well, at least Essence is back from vacation...

 

Coincidental my ass... NO! NOT THE SQUID!!!

 

I have been playing Guild Wars 2 recently. Sadly the game is swarming with Chinese scumbags that steal accounts, farm gold and sell it for cash. They do half of this by stealing accounts. Please pay close attention to this next image. It details an easy to understand means to defeat most such scum. (This image was linked in from the GW2 site. They apparently got tired of having to close accounts of people to dumb to make unique and strong passwords for each game anew. DO NOT REUSE THE SAME PASSWORDS IN NEW GAMES/SITES!!! Just do not!)

Remember that a long password with even one single capital letter is twice as hard as one with all lowercase. But length is the best trick. I suggest picking a common letter for use in passwords like the letter "E" and always making the first use of that letter in your password capital. Using punctuation also increases the entropy of the password, and it could be a good idea to use a comma or space between words as an easy to remember trick to make it harder.

But all things considered, the example they gave above is the best way by far. Just make it simple and long. Even a dictionary attack would take many many attempts with common words. And if the site/software is coded responsibly, it will lock the account after no more than a dozen attempts. Especially if they are from a different part of the world. I would love to be able to set all sites/applications that I use to never accept even a correct login from anywhere besides my home country. But that is often harder than you would think due to proxies and other such issues.

A packet sniffer will be able to crack any documented password even if the transmission is encrypted. It does not even take long to do such. So just make your password long and unique.

I know, too damned much text for a simple image, but it is important for people to understand that 99% of security breeches are *THEIR FAULT* since they use weak passwords and/or they use the same ones everywhere. One site that has a breech opens all sites if you use the same password.

/rant off

 

Well, there's also the fact that some sites/games have limits on the maximum length of the password. Sometimes that means your password can't be longer than 32 characters, and sometimes it means it can't be longer than 12 (!) which makes it impossible to get any semblance of security without resorting to drunk trips on the Unicode table.

I do agree, however, that reusing passwords is a major flunk when it comes to security. Of course it doesn't really hurt to have the same passwords to "minor" sites where no real harm could be done (I do have to admit my password on some forums is identical, but you'd have to know which forums is it about and I don't always use the same username), but sites to which access ought to be protected need their own passwords.


That being said, let us get back onto the topic; here is a picture of some pillows:

 

I use one password for all my minor stuff, like free game accounts and this BBS, but I use a totally different password system for the important stuff like financial information. Sadly, I forget the latter a lot more than I do the former. I would use the 4 common words system except most places don't give you that many characters to work with...

 

Some websites have those little "password strength" meters that go from red to green etc. I saw one a few months ago that did this as I was typing in my password:

****________ WEAK
*******______ MEDIUM
*************__ STRONG
**************** WEAK

So it seemed to think that just-below-max-length was somehow stronger than max. *shrug*

Anyway, have another XKCD:


This thread is certainly making me richer ^_^

 

In well over 90% of all uses over the Internet, passwords are hashed before sending. So the real-life length can be argued to be meaningless. "a" hashed out to 128 bits is equally strong as "3vEry letTer on y0ur Keyboard,.1!#"" once it is hashed out.

In reality, the first attack someone will attempt when bruteforcing a password is all combinations of lowercase letters at the maximum length allowed. Shorter passwords are *Actually* more strong than max length against Humans attempting to break them using PCs to do the bruteforce.

I hope everyone reads that and thinks on it a moment.

 

No offense to Mac users.

 

And finally, Men and Women have different parts. This next image illustrates that. Notice the heart is located in different places.

 

No offense intended. It is a joke after all.

I put these four together so that if anyone complains, they can all be destroyed together.

 

Bad idea kids. Drugs cost money. So you have to be employed. By the way, Drugs Are Bad. M'Kay?

And finally, you better post something funny!