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
In good company.
If you’ve ever done it, don’t worry.
You have company.
In a survey of 800 high-speed Internet users, slightly more than half of the
respondents confessed to writing down their passwords.
And nearly half of the survey group said they used the same password over and
over again - another big no-no.
It’s merely a sign of the times we live in.
Anyone spending time with a computer and the Internet is bound to have at least
a dozen passwords to track.
Some must be changed every 60 or 90 days.
Many have at least eight characters and contain numbers, symbols and capital
letters.
Keeping them straight can be mind-boggling.
Just how critical it is depends on whom you ask.
There is some debate about the value of passwords in the battle against the
computer crimes that victimize 8 million people each year.
Well, I have done it, so I don’t have to worry too much about it.
They did actually say that we have company, and I bet a lot of our listeners
write theirs down, Bill.
I... I think, uh, most of our listeners do write them down in some form,
and it might be writing down on a piece of paper, or even actually entering them
in a text message on their cell phone or even...
Oh, be careful with that.
... BlackBerry.
OK.
Doris, I’ve actually typed in my password on an e-mail and mailed it to myself
to another e-mail address.
Oh, Bill, that sounds really bad.
You sound worse than me.
Well now, they did a little survey on this, Pam, and what did they find out in
the survey?
Right, well, they did a pretty good survey.
They surveyed 800 high-speed Internet users, and found out that slightly more
than half,
slightly just means a little more than half of the people who responded,
actually confessed that yes, they have or do still write their passwords down.
Sounds like you’re doing something really wrong when you have to confess it.
OK, I confess that I did it, you know, but you mean (Chinese).
I said yes, I did, I’ve written mine down.
But I don’t feel too bad about it yet.
Do you?
Well, I don’t too... feel too badly about it, yet.
They’re about to get me, though.
OK.
I’ve made one of the next mistakes.
All right, because it says nearly half the group said they used the same
password over and over.
Did you ever do that, Pam?
Mmhm, I’m guilty.
Why do we do that?
It’s easier to remember, I must admit.
It’s much easier.
I... I don’t always write them down.
In fact, if I find myself using the same password or modified password, then I
don’t necessarily write it down.
But that’s a no-no as they tell us in the next line.
No-no sounds like you’re talking to a little kid.
You’re like a baby and say, ”No-no, don’t do that.”.
But it just means, ”Don’t you dare do it.”.
Right, and it... a lot of people use the same password, Doris.
I’ll go back to that thing like the sports team, for instance.
Say somebody picks the word Yankees for a password, right?
Well, then maybe on... on the next site they go to, they might pick Yankees2.
And then they might go to the next place and... Yankees3.
Well, that...
Yankees1, 2, 3.
Yeah, that doesn’t do any good because hackers know that.
Right.
And they realize people will use the same password and the only changes they’ll
make might be just a slight number or one letter, something like that, and they
can figure it out.
Sounds like you know what it’s all about there, Bill.
But, you know, it’s a no-no anyway.
But it’s what they call here ”a sign of the times,” and that’s a very good idiom
to know.
I like this idiom, Doris.
It just simply means we’re talking about something that indicates the way
society is today.
We often use the idiom... idiom in a negative way.
We might be talking about something that we think is negative, and we’ll say,
”It’s just a sign of the times”.
Mmhm.
Yes, we do.
We use that quite a bit.
Right, and... and like Pam said, maybe a negative change, something that’s
disappointing, so...
Like we say well, the... the more population there are, and everybody’s going to
the big cities, there’s more crime.
It’s a sign of the times.
More people are leaving the farms and moving to the cities, and so there higher
rents.
It’s also a sign of the times.
These are things that happen because of the way the world is going today.
A sign of the time we live in, isn’t it?
That’s right.
The times.
So it’s a sign of the times we live in.
Anybody that spends time on a competer and Internet will, or it says, is bound
to have at least a dozen passwords to track down.
That’s true.
Gotta have some.
Mmhm.
But I... And I actually underlined ”bound to,” Doris, because, uh, that’s
actually a verbal phrase.
”Bound to,” that means we will have.
Right.
So it’s just a little trick we use there on the sentence sometimes.
And many have at least eight characters containing numbers, symbols and capital
letters.
So if you say, ”Now, let’s see. Did I spell my name with a capital or the first
name or the second name?”.
And it’s kind of, you know, I can hardly remember, and I would call it
mind-boggling.
I like that adjective, mind-boggling.
It just means something that’s extremely difficult to understand or to manage.
Now, in that sentence there on line 26, we mentioned characters that contain
numbers, symbols and capital letters.
One of the things that is, uh, helpful, Doris, and we’ll discuss it even more
later in the next day is that we can use, for instance, numbers to represent
letters, for instance.
Maybe, uh, the number 1 to represent L, maybe 2 for Z, and 0 for an O...
That’s not easy, Bill, that is not easy at all.
Oh, I know, it’s not, but it is effective.
You know what?
Some people often do their birthdays.
But then if you find out a person’s birthday, you might check that because some
people use their birthday.
So if you find out when that person was born, and a hacker might try. So I’m not
using my birthday.
Terrible, terrible.
Don’t try that.
One of the worst things people can do is use their birthday.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because people can find out when you were born, look it up some place and say,
OK, she probably used her birthday.
Right.
So, Pam, don’t use your birthday.
Thank you, Doris, not my birthday, but another important date.
OK, don’t tell anybody what that one is, OK.
But you know, whenever we use...
My birthday.
Yeah, your birthday.
(Background Noise).
Now I’ll have to change it, Bill.
Yeah, that’s right.
Whether use your middle name or something like that.
Uh, sometimes you might use your mother’s maiden name.
But then somebody could - if they want to - check all that.
It’s true.
They probably won’t check mine, because I don’t really have a lot of money.
But, you know, if you’re trying to get some millionaire or somebody, then you
might try to really go through it.
But I don’t think they’ll bother with mine that much, but, you know.
But you do have to be careful.
And there is kind of a debate going on about this.
So it depends on whom you ask.
Some people say, ”No, they wouldn’t do that.”.
Some people say, ”Yes, they would.”.
There is a debate going on, isn’t there, Bill?
Right, there is some debate about the value of passwords, uh, in the battle
against computer crimes.
And, uh, it... again it goes back to... it depends on whom you ask, so there’s
differing opinions.
Well, they victimize at least 8 million people each year.
What does it mean to victimize?
Oh, well, that’s how many people actually will suffer, uh, cyber crimes - that’s
have their identity stolen or their accounts broken into.
8 million.
8 million.
Well, you know, Bill, Pam said that happened to her once.
Yeah, I know.
Pam, tell us about that.
Right, so Doris, I was a victim of cyber crime.
Um, some months ago someone, uh, somehow obtained my credit card number,
and my bank called to check on something that looked like suspicious activity,
and someone had tried to charge $9,500.
9 thousand.
9 thousand.
US dollars?
US dollars.
Oh, my goodness.
Usually you would buy things like $50 or $100.
Right, so it seems like...
How did they find it out, then?
They... they tried to charge online, the charge was refused, and then my bank
called because it was suspicious.
I guess so.
Boy, anybody wants to charge $9,500, I think the banks would call, wouldn’t
they?
Well, the banks have, uh, systems in place that trigger, uh, maybe if it goes
over certain amount, normally they...
For instance, they have an average purchase for Pam in the records.
That’s one thing that would trigger.
It also might be the location of where the purchase might be made. All of a
sudden...
See, somebody might have broken into Pam’s account, that person could’ve been in
Eastern Europe.
Yeah.
So, and it might show up as a purchase, uh, appearing...
In Russia.
Some other place, so the bank would say, ”Hey, this is really strange. This
person in Tennessee’s buying software in Sweden.”.
Yeah.
Well, Pam, then what did you do when they charge that?
You didn’t have to pay it.
I didn’t have to pay it, thankfully.
But it’s still...
Scary.
Always very inconvenient and very scary because number one, you don’t know how
the person obtained your number.
Number two, I had to cancel that particular card and start over again with a new
number.
There must be a lot of that when you lose your credit cards or you think
somebody has... has stolen the number, then you have to get a new card.
So it’s a lot of work - change all your records and files, and it’s not easy.
It’s very inconvenient, and that was a minor episode.
For people who have their... their identity stolen, it’s major.
Right, and... and we’ve done articles about this in the past year or two.
Doris and some security firms were just predicting it’s only going to increase
more and more.
That’s a sign of the times, Bill.
It’s a sign of the times.
Right.
And you want to be careful that you, uh, don’t do anything stupid as far as,
uh...
I mean, there’s... we can be careful, but also there’re things we can do on our
part to not invite trouble.
Well, one thing is if I try to go to some site that I can’t find my password or
I forget it, then they have a little thing that says, ”Forget your passport?
Again?”.
And then you can give them your e-mail address, and they’ll send you the
password.
They might ask... they will ask you a question when you first signed up.
Like what’s your cat’s name or something like that.
Right, and... and so they’ll need... you’ll need to answer that question.
Mmhm.
Um, and usually the... it’s... with banks and financial companies, they try to
be as secure as possible.
And Doris, I remember doing... doing a similar program in Advanced Studio, maybe
five, six years ago.
Yes, that’s right.
And we were talking about this.
And the question was asked of me: ”Do you buy anything online?”.
And at that time I said ”No,” I’m afraid.
Now, six years later, I buy many things online but I always checked to be sure
that it is security encrypted.
Right, and I guess if you have that security encrypted on it, that’s supposed to
be safe, as far as I know.
But maybe not always.
Yeah.
Hey, Doris, I want to go back up to just cover one little idiom here that, uh,
we didn’t have a chance in line 9 and 10: leave the keys to your life, uh,
scribbled on a piece of paper.
Leave the keys... uh... it just caught my eye because, well, we use that to say
a lot of times we have all of our keys for like a car and a house,
and you don’t want to just leave the keys to your car sitting on a park bench
somewhere.
So that’s why we would say, ”Don’t leave the keys to your life scribbled...”.
So we’re not actually leaving an actual key, but the numbers and the passwords
are the key, actually, to access for all of our information.
And Bill, if we do write them on paper, don’t take them out with you.
Just hide them in that drawer or someplace.
Even if you have to look for it, you’re not supposed to take them outside.
I wouldn’t carry them with you.
But if you’re traveling, maybe you want to carry them in your suitcase or
something?
Well, it’s...
It’s a problem.
It’s... it’s difficult.
You might leave it in the hotel room.
Um, I have done this before.
I’ve written them down.
I’ve carried them with me and...
Oh, Bill, Bill, you’re really bad, you know that?
I’m bad.
You’re on the other side over there, hahaha...
Yeah, one thing to remember is that it... maybe to change ours on a frequent
basis, as we mentioned in line 25.
A lot companies have their employees change them every 60 or 90 days.
So if you got them written down, at least what you can do is change them.
OK.
Well, we’ll find out more about it tomorrow.
It’s a very important subject, and you see all these numbers and things up here.
We’re going to find out how these people do attack through our computers
tomorrow.
We’ll talk about it a little bit.
But remember, be very careful with your passwords.
And we’ll talk about what difference it makes.
And Pam found out that she had to change her credit card.
That’s exactly right.
So when you come back tomorrow, we’ll see you then with this rest of the lesson.
Goodbye and have a good day today.
Goodbye.