Password Security has much room for improvement.

Overall there are many different way to protect your accounts online. The most prominent one is, of course, the password. Although this is a standard in the industry there are many ways that this type of security can be improved. There has been a lot of discussion lately about the possibility of using pass-phrases rather than passwords. This greatly increases the number of permutations that are required to guess a password but overall there is a simpler method available to the general public. If we just limited the number of tries a user can enter a password before either lockout or requiring two factor authentications we can generally increase the amount of difficulty associated with passwords exponentially. There would be no use for brute force attacks against passwords if this limitation existed. I know a lot of people will say that there are many implications associated with password lockout but in the day of smart phones and multiple accounts it would not be difficult to do a password reset via. preset phone number. Although this type of security exists it is also important to realize that this may be too much for the average user, or those people who do not feel as technically savvy. Yes, I think it is important that my e-mail be kept safe, but one of my e-mail accounts can be easily cracked as I don’t particularly mind people reading all of the junk mail I sign up for while some of my other accounts need to be kept as safe as possible because they would provide links directly to my banking information. One of the central principles of security is that every time you increase the level of security you also decrease the usability of a system. In this instance there should be an increased amount of security surrounding the passwords for your money. When it has nothing to do with anything of your personal life or something that you hold dear you should use simple and easy to remember passwords. Your bank should be exponentially more difficult to access. Below is an article which states that you should use multi-word passwords (lifehacker), but you need to remember that proper grammar is your enemy in this instance. The web comic XKCD has a wonderful example of this in one of their web comics. Ensuring that these gibberish sentences are security is a combination of both the length of the password as well as the difficulty that it presents to rainbow tables. With just a few words you can easily defend what you consider important as well as ensuring that your password is easily memorable compared to the random hodgepodge of numbers, letters, and symbols that is generally used by people to create passwords. Overall you have to remember that you have prioritize your defenses in what you want to keep safe and what is not as valuable to you. Using simple passwords is acceptable for some e-mails accounts but anything which directs a malicious person to your most valuable assets, memories, etc. should be kept behind the most secure passwords. These http://lifehacker.com/5796816/why-multiword-phrases-make-more-secure-passwords-than-incomprehensible-gibberish

Me and my little future geek.

I have begun thinking that as a geek I have a certain reputation that I must uphold in relation to raising my children. I have been thinking about my children's education. Although I know that studies have been done about children who learn a specialized skill at an early age excel at it (i.e. chess), but I was considering what I would like my children to learn and hopefully love as they grow older. One of my main passions as I was growing up was computers and as such I am devoted to learning as much as I can about them. I was considering teaching my children about the sciences with chemistry in particular. I was wondering if anybody out there had ideas that my three year old might grasp and enjoy at the same time. I know that the biggest issue at this age is not necessarily teaching them the skills, but instead instilling a love of the subject. I'm not asking anybody to do homework for me but instead I was hoping to learn from peoples experiences. The first thing I'm going to do is make some non-Newtonian fluid and let her play with it and see how she reacts between it and water.

Thoughts and frustrations

It seems to me that no matter how hard I try I have great difficulty to finding time to do the things I want to do.  One of my favourite discoveries so far has been the Evernote App (Which you can find here: http://evernote.com/evernote/).  I can't tell  you how excited I am when I'm using this app.  The ability to record interesting websites and save documents which are instantly synced between my home computer and my phone is awesome!!  I only wish they had a version for Linux so that I could bounce things between all of my systems.

On another front there are some truly awesome developing technology coming to the forefront of our society.  Flexible screens, *legal* self driving cars.  I can't wait for the next 10 years when it come to technology.  I constantly hear the fear of the future coming from many of those around me and I'm astounded that they are so worried.  Yes things might go horribly wrong but that's how it always is.  Which is worse dying in a zombie apocalypse or just getting hit by a car?  Either way dead is dead you might as well live in the moment, do what you enjoy, and forget about everything else.

Finally a funny cat gif from imgur.com http://i.imgur.com/RcOgg.gif