I often wonder about the names given to neighborhoods and subdivisions. In my area (Cobb County, Georgia) there is currently a lot of growth with new developments going up all over the place.
There was a wide plot of woodlands off of Post Oak Tritt Road.
The following may sound rather difficult or obscure, but I have found with practice that it is a quite reasonable way to generate personal passwords when I have access to a large number of accounts that need separate passwords. I have the following goals:
Every one of my passwords should be different. Access to one machine should not give an intruder access to others.
Knowledge of one or two passwords should not allow guessing of the others. Remember, you do not know whether or not your friend's copy of ssh has been compromized and is sending your plaintext password somewhere in the Andes.
The amount of stuff I have to remember should be linear in the number of accounts I possess. Eight accounts should require no more memory on my part than three.
The following outlines (only vaguely) the sort of technique I use. I hope it helps others consider how to construct their own passwords.
A Sample Algorithm
My technique is to use properties of the system host name and domain as indices into quotes that I have memorized, then used properties of the indexed elements to form the password. If I can remember the quote and the algorithm, then I can get into any of my accounts even if I have not used them for a long time.
For example, take the following snippet of poetry (which I find easier to memorize than prose):
Tis not too late to seek a newer world
Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the Western starts, until I die.
Now define two ways of turning words into password fragments:
(#1) The letter alphabetically before the first letter of the word, followed by a digit which is the length of the word minus one. (the=s2, neuter=m5, I=h9)
(#2) The letter alphabetically after the last letter of the word, followed by a digit which is ten minus the length of the word. (the=f7, neuter=o4, I=j9)
And now we can define our password algorithm:
Length of machine name -> selects nth word of poem -> through hash #1
Length of domain name -> selects nth word from third line of poem -> through hash #2
First letter of host name -> selects nth (n=distance from left side of keyboard of letter) word from fifth line of poem -> through hash #1
So when logging into frodo.shire the password would be s1z8v6.
Dangers
The above algorithm is obviously rather weak. The following thoughts should help you develop your own, better algorithm.
Obviously you should choose an algorithm which makes sense to you and you can remember and implement accurately in your head without scrap paper. This may be difficult at the first try, and it is important to keep in mind that you will not get much practice using the algorithm - you will use it three or four times to log on to each machine you use regularly, then you will start remembering the password out of habit and not use the procedure any more. So you had better make sure you will be able to call the procedure up later when you need to generate a password you have not used for a long time. Keep the following in mind:
Key off of host properties that vary considerably between the machines you use. Using host name length is useless if all of the hosts you log in to have names of the same length. Using domain name is useless if all the hosts are in the same domain. You can obviously use other properties, including the name of your account (if that varies between the machines, or you are in charge of several accounts - like your own and the root account), the organization or purpose of the host, and properties like operating system or your opinion of the machine ("fast", "stupid", "slow").
Choose an algorithm that produces fairly random characters. The above algorithm is quite bad because it will tend to use common letters rather than uncommon ones, for instance. In your real algorithm also try to work some punctuation in.
Make sure you know the quote! Remember the point of the quote is to produce a unique map between facts (letters and lengths) and other letters and lengths that have (apparently) nothing to do with them. In this sense the quote works like a one-time hash - knowing one part of the mapping will not in general help an intruder know another since the words in the quote are not produced algorithmically, but are simply given.
Anyway, I hope this technique is useful to other people with the same needs I have in the area of password choice.
I can't even imagine the thought process that leads people to say things like that.
Actually, having to click on banner ads before entering MP3 sites is quite common.
Try looking up a popular song on Palavista and see how many of the listed sites let you in immediately. Very often the user name and password required for downloading files are chosen from the text of sites linked through banner ads; so you have to visit the sites (and usually click through to their sign-up page) before logging on. Very often these banners are pornographic, perhaps because such firms are not as picky as to who they permit to advertize them.
In this way illicit MP3 sites finance themselves, since simply displaying a banner ad often generates no banner revenue. Apparently the biggest difficulty in running such a site is trying to avoid 100% click-through ratios, as they tend to attract the attention and suspicion of banner advertizement firms.
He said: ``it's only natural" - parents want their genes passed on and on and on and on, and "superior" children would pass on more genes.''
You seem to miss an important point - when a child is engineered, it is not entirely his parents' genes that are being propagated! Rather, it is the genes of those who donated the reference samples for ``big'', ``small'', ``red hair'', ``high intelligence'', etcetera. While it does not seem probable (well, to me this morning) that a large fraction of a person's genome would be selected by his parents (why mess with all the liver genes if they will work?), the few chosen traits that make him successful and healthy will not come from his parents at all. In the future, the most important determinants of who you are might not be your parents' genes at all!
Of course, once we start engineering genes rather than just copying them from other humans, then no one would be increasing their Darwinian fitness; engineered humans would be the Darwinian offspring of no one, but rather products of technology and mind working directly upon biological material.
Does this mean that there will develop different strains of humanity reflecting different parents' taste? Some parents get really intense about wanting their students to excell in sports; how could these parents resist increasing the size and weight of their future football player? Other students might be optimized for intelligence or the arts, or for those beauty contests that some parents are really obsessed about having their children participate in. Today there are already enough differences between smaller students and the largest; the differences in mass are easily greater than two to one! Will genetic manipulation bring even greater differences about? And will we be able to engineer children to like the activity for which they are designed, or will be have thousands of kids stuck in bodies that server their parents' interests rather than their own?
One hundred years hence, race might have disappeared as the primary differentiation among persons. Instead, we may bear much more significant differences as the result of parental design.
The system you are advocating - if I understand your scheme correctly, that each of us has a given amount of "vote" that we can split between the candidates - would still possess the same fundamental flaw of our current system! If you agree completely with two different candidates, you are still not free to give both of them complete support. What we need is Approval Voting, in which you vote for or against each candidate; in this way the fact that you like more than one candidate does not make your vote less important than the votes of people who only like one.
IT HAS BEEN SHOWN BY MATHEMATICIANS that the approval voting system is the only one which accurately reflects each politician's degree of support by the public. I am surprised that more Slashdot "nerds", who are normally pretty sharp with respect to mathematics, do not already know about it and champion it. See the Approval Voting Home Page for details!
On the other hand, Lucas's writing seems to have gone down hill since the first trilogy. Hopefully, the quality of the dialogue and plot will increase with practise.
I would argue that Lucas has always been a quite mediocre writer. This is evidenced by the original Star Wars novel, written by Lucas himself, and is also reflected in the low quality of the dialogue in the current Phantom Menace novel (doubtless based on a raw version of the movie's script). The reason that the first movies achieved such stellar dialogue is because Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford are superb at taking rather bland lines and creating memorable and interesting characters. This is especially true for Ford, whose dialogue had to adumbrate the characters of both Han Solo and Chewbacca.
Slashdot Mirror
- There was a wide plot of woodlands off of Post Oak Tritt Road.
- Some bulldozers came and cleared the land.
- They covered the land with roads and houses.
- They named the neighborhood ``Lost Forest.''
The unselfconscious irony here is unspeakable.Notes
The following may sound rather difficult or obscure, but I have found with practice that it is a quite reasonable way to generate personal passwords when I have access to a large number of accounts that need separate passwords. I have the following goals:
- Every one of my passwords should be different. Access to one machine should not give an intruder access to others.
- Knowledge of one or two passwords should not allow guessing of the others. Remember, you do not know whether or not your friend's copy of ssh has been compromized and is sending your plaintext password somewhere in the Andes.
- The amount of stuff I have to remember should be linear in the number of accounts I possess. Eight accounts should require no more memory on my part than three.
The following outlines (only vaguely) the sort of technique I use. I hope it helps others consider how to construct their own passwords.A Sample Algorithm
My technique is to use properties of the system host name and domain as indices into quotes that I have memorized, then used properties of the indexed elements to form the password. If I can remember the quote and the algorithm, then I can get into any of my accounts even if I have not used them for a long time.
For example, take the following snippet of poetry (which I find easier to memorize than prose):
Now define two ways of turning words into password fragments:- (#1) The letter alphabetically before the first letter of the word, followed by a digit which is the length of the word minus one. (the=s2, neuter=m5, I=h9)
- (#2) The letter alphabetically after the last letter of the word, followed by a digit which is ten minus the length of the word. (the=f7, neuter=o4, I=j9)
And now we can define our password algorithm:- Length of machine name -> selects nth word of poem -> through hash #1
- Length of domain name -> selects nth word from third line of poem -> through hash #2
- First letter of host name -> selects nth (n=distance from left side of keyboard of letter) word from fifth line of poem -> through hash #1
So when logging into frodo.shire the password would be s1z8v6.Dangers
The above algorithm is obviously rather weak. The following thoughts should help you develop your own, better algorithm.
Obviously you should choose an algorithm which makes sense to you and you can remember and implement accurately in your head without scrap paper. This may be difficult at the first try, and it is important to keep in mind that you will not get much practice using the algorithm - you will use it three or four times to log on to each machine you use regularly, then you will start remembering the password out of habit and not use the procedure any more. So you had better make sure you will be able to call the procedure up later when you need to generate a password you have not used for a long time. Keep the following in mind:
- Key off of host properties that vary considerably between the machines you use. Using host name length is useless if all of the hosts you log in to have names of the same length. Using domain name is useless if all the hosts are in the same domain. You can obviously use other properties, including the name of your account (if that varies between the machines, or you are in charge of several accounts - like your own and the root account), the organization or purpose of the host, and properties like operating system or your opinion of the machine ("fast", "stupid", "slow").
- Choose an algorithm that produces fairly random characters. The above algorithm is quite bad because it will tend to use common letters rather than uncommon ones, for instance. In your real algorithm also try to work some punctuation in.
- Make sure you know the quote! Remember the point of the quote is to produce a unique map between facts (letters and lengths) and other letters and lengths that have (apparently) nothing to do with them. In this sense the quote works like a one-time hash - knowing one part of the mapping will not in general help an intruder know another since the words in the quote are not produced algorithmically, but are simply given.
Anyway, I hope this technique is useful to other people with the same needs I have in the area of password choice.I can't even imagine the thought process that leads people to say things like that.
Actually, having to click on banner ads before entering MP3 sites is quite common.
Try looking up a popular song on Palavista and see how many of the listed sites let you in immediately. Very often the user name and password required for downloading files are chosen from the text of sites linked through banner ads; so you have to visit the sites (and usually click through to their sign-up page) before logging on. Very often these banners are pornographic, perhaps because such firms are not as picky as to who they permit to advertize them.
In this way illicit MP3 sites finance themselves, since simply displaying a banner ad often generates no banner revenue. Apparently the biggest difficulty in running such a site is trying to avoid 100% click-through ratios, as they tend to attract the attention and suspicion of banner advertizement firms.
You seem to miss an important point - when a child is engineered, it is not entirely his parents' genes that are being propagated! Rather, it is the genes of those who donated the reference samples for ``big'', ``small'', ``red hair'', ``high intelligence'', etcetera. While it does not seem probable (well, to me this morning) that a large fraction of a person's genome would be selected by his parents (why mess with all the liver genes if they will work?), the few chosen traits that make him successful and healthy will not come from his parents at all. In the future, the most important determinants of who you are might not be your parents' genes at all!
Of course, once we start engineering genes rather than just copying them from other humans, then no one would be increasing their Darwinian fitness; engineered humans would be the Darwinian offspring of no one, but rather products of technology and mind working directly upon biological material.
One hundred years hence, race might have disappeared as the primary differentiation among persons. Instead, we may bear much more significant differences as the result of parental design.
IT HAS BEEN SHOWN BY MATHEMATICIANS that the approval voting system is the only one which accurately reflects each politician's degree of support by the public. I am surprised that more Slashdot "nerds", who are normally pretty sharp with respect to mathematics, do not already know about it and champion it. See the Approval Voting Home Page for details!
I would argue that Lucas has always been a quite mediocre writer. This is evidenced by the original Star Wars novel, written by Lucas himself, and is also reflected in the low quality of the dialogue in the current Phantom Menace novel (doubtless based on a raw version of the movie's script). The reason that the first movies achieved such stellar dialogue is because Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford are superb at taking rather bland lines and creating memorable and interesting characters. This is especially true for Ford, whose dialogue had to adumbrate the characters of both Han Solo and Chewbacca.