节目资讯
刊物:科技前沿
日期:2009-06-08
难易度:Low
关键字:poster child, dubious, a sign of the times, mind-b
Advanced Studio Classroom is on the air.
Join us in our Advanced class today as we talk about a very important subject:
Password Protection.
Welcome, everyone around the world, wherever you are, to our Advanced class.
It’s so nice to meet people who say: I listen to Advanced.
Even though they might be fifty, sixty, or even eighty years old, they still
listen to Advanced.
And we have as our guest panelist today, Pam Osment, who’s visiting from the
United States, and she works for Studio Classroom in America.
Hello, Pam.
Hi, Doris, and hi, listeners.
It’s always great to be back.
And I’ve said this many times before: In every one of our article stories, I
learned something new, and I learned some good information today.
Well, Pam, you’re still working for Studio Classroom, but where do you live,
actually?
I now live in Tennessee.
It’s a southern State.
And I love to tell my Chinese friends (Chinese) is also in Tennessee - Memphis,
Tennessee - but I’m in the north-western part of the State of Tennessee.
And I detect a slight southern accent.
Ahaha...
Do you, Bill?
Yes, a little bit of a southern accent.
But, Pam, it’s so nice to have you back.
And you also answer a lot of our student letters for us, don’t you?
I do.
I love it because it’s a way for me to stay connected with our students, even
from the States.
So if you ever write to letters@studioclassroom.com, you might hear from Pam.
That’s right.
Thanks for being with us today.
We’re glad you can be visiting us.
Every year she comes back to headquarters, to Taipei, so we’re happy to welcome
you today.
Thank you, Doris.
And then we also have Bill.
Bill, this is a very important lesson, isn’t it?
Oh, it is very important, Doris, because we all need to be aware of security
when using computers.
We’re on a computer so much, all of us, especially the Internet, and we need to
be very careful.
Well, our lesson is in our June magazine on page 20, and it’s called passwork...
Password Protection.
But in between there’s a little sentence, and what does that sentence say, Bill?
What difference does it make what the password is?
Hmm, that’s a good question, isn’t it?
It makes a big difference as we will find out.
All right, we’re going to find out more about that.
And sometimes we have to give a password with so many letters and so many words
and numbers.
And if you... you don’t go to a lot of different things, if you use things like
Webshots and... or just almost every daily thing, get the news, they always want
a password.
And sometimes you might have thirty passwords.
Do you, Bill?
I... I don’t know if I have thirty, but... maybe about a dozen or so like uh,
which is mentioned in here, in the article.
And it’s actually difficult to remember all of them, Doris.
Well, don’t tell me what they are, though.
I don’t want to hear it.
Haha...
Because we’re going to talk about password protection - is it possible?
And sometimes we forget our passwords.
So we’re going to find out what we should do.
Pam, don’t you think this lesson is very important today?
It’s very important because I already have learned some things that I’m doing
wrong and some things I need to do or can do differently.
I think listeners will too.
OK so we’re going to read the first section of this, uh, down through line 15.
Listen carefully.
Use a yellow pencil to mark things you want to know, and learn how to protect
your password.
Password Protection.
What difference does it make what the password is?
In the world of passwords, there’s a right way and a wrong way to protect
yourself.
Cliff Gaines of Montana has lived on both sides of the line.
A decade ago, he was a poster child for how to do it wrong.
His passwords were complicated enough, but he was writing them down.
Those are five words that make most experts cringe.
How, they ask, do you expect to keep yourself - or your employer - safe from
identity theft and computer fraud if you leave the keys to your life scribbled
on a piece of paper?
Turns out it wasn’t such a great system for Gaines, either.
”From time to time, I’d pull it out. But then I’d lose it,” Gaines said.
Armed with a new system based on the names of his favorite cars, he long ago
left the dubious ranks of those who put passwords on paper.
Well, there’s something interesting in here.
We’ll discuss whether we do this or don’t do it.
But in the very first paragraph, in fact, it’s about 3rd to 4th line, they’re
talking about a man named Cliff Gaines.
He’s from Montana, that’s where our teacher Ruth lived, right?
And he lived on both sides of the line.
What line are we talking about here, Bill?
Well, we’re talking about the line of how to keep your passwords and, uh,
there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it.
And just imagine a line right down the middle, determining right and wrong.
And he actually kind of lived on both sides.
He had one foot on one side one foot on the other.
Well, maybe we’re like that too.
I’m not sure.
On many issues, I think.
That’s right.
But about ten years ago - that’s a decade - it says he was a poster child for
how to do it wrong.
That’s an interesting expression, and I... I know what it means when I read it,
but I would never use it in writing, would you, Pam?
It’s a good kind of visual picture, I guess... if you know the background.
And the background is that in the States years ago, these, uh, groups who were
trying to raise money for diseases would choose a child,
a child a year with that disease, and then the child would be pictured on a
poster.
But here it just simply means they are the... this is the perfect example.
He is the perfect example.
So if you wanted a little African kid who was starving, you wanted to raise
money to help or something, you would show this poster child.
He’d be on the poster and (Chinese), you would: Oh, I have to give money to him.
So that would be the poster child for that year, is that right?
That’s right.
But we live out here in Asia, we don’t really know too much about that
expression, poster child.
What about you, Bill?
Do you use it much?
Well, it’s... it’s something that I use once in a while, but not often.
It’s... it’s more common in the Western world.
But it’s... it’s actually turned around in a more positive way and maybe a
humorous way.
For instance, Doris, I might say you’re the poster child of how to live a good,
long, productive life.
So Doris is the poster child of quality, fulfilling life.
Well, you could say he was a good example or a good... a perfect example of how
to do it wrong.
What he did was often wrong.
He was a good example of how to do it wrong.
Or how not to do it.
Or how not to do it, OK.
And his passwords were complicated enough.
Now when you make a password, they’ll often say: ”Use a name, use a number.”.
But if you use a lot of names and a lot of numbers, are you supposed to to be
able to remember all those, Pam?
Well, as we’ll see, he was using a method to remember them, but the method was
incorrect, according to the experts.
He was writing them down, and that’s not the right way to do it.
Uh-oh. Have you ever written yours down?
Confessions.
Oh, yes.
I have, yeah, I have.
I’m afraid I still do.
Hahaha...
Because, you know, when you belong to so many things, even a newspaper I want to
read, they’ll say put your name and password here.
Right.
And I’ll try one password, and they’ll say: No, that’s not enough letters.
That’s something else.
Well, if I have to have so many passwords, there’s no way I can remember twenty
or thirty of them all the time.
And you have to change them sometimes.
That’s right.
And, but it says: Don’t write them down.
How can that be so bad?
What does it say about that, Bill?
Well, those are five words that make most experts cringe.
Cringe means pull back and stay alarmed.
Oh, don’t do that!
What things make you cringe?
Snakes.
Snakes.
Hahaha...
Sometimes a violent TV show where everybody’s killing everybody, there’s blood
all over, and I say: Ooh, that makes me cringe!
Right.
(Chinese).
Oh, yeah, (Chinese) makes me cringe, OK.
But anyway, if you say, ”I write my passwords down,” they’d say, ”Oh, no. That’s
terrible. Don’t do that!”.
It makes the experts on password protection cringe.
Well, not only do the experts cringe, but then we asked the question: Well, how
do you expect to keep these to yourself?
Uh, or you know, how do you expect to keep the secret to yourself or your
employer?
How do you keep it safe from identifying theft and computer fraud?
Well, I don’t leave it on the top of my desk, Bill.
Right, I... I follow that up with another question, Bill.
How then, I ask, am I expected to remember it if I don’t write it down?
That’s right.
Well, yeah.
That’s... that’s the thing, because it’s really difficult to remember all of
them, so...
But we’re... It’s a good question, not only for your own personal sides, but
also for things that might affect your work and your company.
Well, that’s true, you do... and your bank account, things like that, that’s
pretty important.
Right.
Well, it turn... it turns out that it wasn’t such a great system for Gaines,
either.
In other words, he used to probably write his down, and then he didn’t do it,
right?
Right, he... he did write them down, but he admits here, well, it really didn’t
work because ”from time to time, I’d pull it out, but then I’d lose it.”.
Well, that’s his fault. He shouldn’t lose it, right?
Did you ever lose yours?
Uh, I have lost mine.
Uh-oh.
Or forgotten where I... forgotten where I put them.
Mmhm.
It sounds like, though, he had them all on one list, and he lost that list.
Well, if he lost it in his house, it’s not so bad.
If he lost it at the grocery store, it might be bad.
Well, normally, uh, for most people, we’re going to keep them like in a desk.
Right.
A desk drawer.
Yes.
And the problem is, it might be one piece of paper, that then we had so many
things into those desk drawers that they just get...
it gets buried under so many different little pieces of paper that it’s... we
might spend 30 minutes trying to find that piece of paper.
Bill, you really haven’t convinced me, and I want to read more and see what they
say.
It says: Armed with this new system...
Now here’s the new system.
”Armed with” means he’s all set up, he’s ready..
”I’m gonna do this new system.” And he has his based on names of his favorite
cars.
Oh, my goodness... Volkswagen is an awful long name.
I guess you have, uh, have a... a short word like Colt or something like that.
Right.
Well, it’s not a bad idea naming... using passwords based upon, uh, a favorite
topic of yours.
Now...
Yours would be football players.
Might be... right, I think of like, uh, maybe, uh, sports teams - baseball
teams.
You can have, for instance, all your passwords could be baseball teams or maybe,
uh, NBA basketball teams or NBA basketball players.
And animals.
What about tigers and seabirds and...
Things like that, yeah.
Pam, what would you do?
Well, I... I guess...
Let me just ask you a question, though, Bill.
How would you then remember? You know.
Yeah.
For me, how would you then remember which sports team you’ve applied to which,
uh, which, uh, website.
Let’s say you have CNN.com, StudioClassroom.com, you have all these different
ones.
You see now... Did I put a Chrysler on that or a Ford, or uh, a Honda?
Which... how are you going to remember that?
I’ll probably write them down.
Haha...
They haven’t convinced you either.
Me too.
OK.
That’s what he did.
And he long ago left the dubious ranks of those who put passwords on paper.
Dubious means doubtful, doesn’t it?
Doubtful... it has a couple of different meanings.
Um, also something that’s not positive or bad.
He left the... the... the bad ranks of those people who put their passwords on
paper.
So, questionable, right?
Questionable, that’s a good word.
But I can’t say it’s absolutely wrong.
I’m not ready to say it’s absolutely wrong to write it down, are you, Bill?
I... I’m not ready to say that because it’s... it is so difficult to... to
remember these.
And as we go on, there will be more and more sites. They just keep increasing,
how many places I’ve got... uh... I need passwords for.
So how am I going to remember all this?
Well, we have to protect our passwords, uh, after our passwords.
And if we don’t, some terrible things can happen.
Later on, Pam’s going to tell us one thing that happened to her.
Right.
But let’s read on first because it says if you’ve ever done that, don’t worry,
because you’re in good company.
All of us, the three of us have all done that, right?
Yes.
So we’re in good company.
Let’s find out what it says as we finish reading this article.