节目资讯
刊物:科技前沿
日期:2009-06-09
难易度:Low
关键字:slim, lax, masquerade as
Advanced Studio Classroom is on the air.
Welcome back to Advanced class as we finish this very interesting and
informative article on Password Protection.
Welcome, everybody, and please don’t tell me your passwords.
I don’t want to know because it’s very dangerous.
And this is Doris Brougham, (Chinese).
And as our panelists today, we have Bill, who’s one of our regular panelists.
Bill, don’t tell me your passwords, either.
I don’t want to know.
I can’t even remember them, Doris, so I can’t tell you.
Did you write them down?
Haha, I’ve got them written down somewhere.
Oh, Bill, oh, my goodness.
I left them over at Starbucks...
Uh-oh, uh-oh, I’m going to check all the Starbucks in the neighborhood.
Well, then we also have our panelist, Pam, who’s visiting from the States and
will be with us this month.
Thanks, Pam, for being on Advanced with us.
Hi, thanks, Doris, it’s great to be back in the Studio.
(Chinese).
(Chinese).
Well, no matter what language you use - whether it’s Chinese or English or any
language in the world - whatever you put your password in, you have to be
careful.
What difference does it make what the password is?
Well, it could make a huge difference, Doris, and by that we talked yesterday
about, uh, Pam actually having her credit card information taken.
It could be a huge difference financially for you, and also a major hassle.
We’re getting it all sorted out later on.
We know this whole thing is rather mind-boggling to me.
Mind-boggling is a good adjective, and it... it just simply means that something
is either, uh, extremely difficult to imagine or to manager or to handle.
Well, you know, they’ve always had crime.
Ever since you read the history of the world, people have stolen things from
other people.
So, could we say that it’s a sign of the times that there’s crime in the world?
Well, not the crime.
Uh, there’s always crime.
But what type of crime is a sign of the times.
And the sign of the times now is cyber crime.
Doris, these are hackers, people who... whose fulltime job is sitting in front
of a computer keyboard,
and they will spend 15, 17 hours a day, every single day, trying to get
information.
Well, you scare me when you talk about that.
But they do have policemen all over the world, computer... what they call these
policemen that try to do that?
Remember we did an article on that?
Right, we have done, uh, some articles and talked about some of the firms trying
to fight cyber crime.
But the problem is they’re just... they’re kind of behind on this.
They’re always chasing because the hackers are always one step ahead.
Well, in our article, which is a good article - it’s on pages 20 and 21 of your
June magazine - we’re going to talk about how they attack.
How they get into your computers.
I certainly don’t want to let them in my computer.
Well, none of us want them in our computer.
But as we learned yesterday, there are - according to the writers - right ways
and wrong ways to store, remember, and save your password.
We talked about some wrong ways and some right ways.
But why do they want to find out my passwords, Bill?
Well, if they find out your password, then they can access sites that you have
gone to, and then they can actually pull together information.
So if you’re using common passwords.
If I’m a hacker, Doris, and I find out your password, I can access different
sites,
and from three or four different sites, I can put together the necessary
information.
I can find your address on one site, phone number here... oh, there’s a bank
account.
So I can piece it all together.
Eventually I’ll have enough, then I can go on a spending spree.
And you can steal my identity, right?
Yes.
That’s even scarier.
That’s very scary.
We’d better read the rest of this article.
It’s on page 21, and it talks about this generally speaking...
In other words, let’s just start with the very first section of that.
It’s just a couple of paragraphs.
Read that part first.
Generally speaking, the risk of someone actually guessing the password to your
online banking account is quite slim,
particularly when you consider that most commercial sites limit users to a
handful of guesses before the account locks up.
It is far more likely that identity theft will result from carelessness that has
little to do with the strength of a password.
”By far, the greatest risk is that you will provide your password to someone,”
said Fred Cate, a professor at the Indiana University School of Law.
Well, it says that generally speaking, the... the risk of somebody actually
guessing your password to your online banking account is not very good, uh, is
quite slim.
We sometimes use ”slim” to describe someone who’s thin that we consider them a
slim person.
Here though, the word means unlikely, not likely.
OK.
It’s a slim chance, it means there’s not very much of a chance.
If it’s a big chance, it’s different.
There’s a small chance, very small.
That’s kind of comforting to know.
Because it says that, you know, most commercial sites limit users to a handful
of guesses.
And after you’ve done it two or three times, it locks up, and then you can’t
even try anymore.
Right, you might enter, uh, the user name and then you go to the password box
and enter a password.
I’ve done this, Doris.
In a rush, maybe I’ll enter the wrong password.
Or do capital letters or something.
Right, and...
But if somebody does it like three times, then all of a sudden access is denied.
You won’t be able to get into that, uh, site again, maybe for an hour or 30
minutes or something like that.
I’ve done that too, Bill, and... and it’s been frustrating.
Maybe I’ve completely forgotten the password.
I’ve given it my three tries, then I’m locked out.
And that’s been frustrating for me, but it’s a good security measure, so I’m
really thankful for it.
OK, but you know, it’s... it’s far more likely or the most likely thing to
happen is identity theft will become... the people will do to you because you’re
careless.
And it doesn’t mean your password isn’t good.
I might have a very good password... password with all kinds of letters after my
name, and you won’t guess it.
It’s a good password, but I might become careless.
Well, careless. This... this could be any number of ways, Doris.
And the most obvious thing I can think of is too often we open up e-mails or
attachments from people.
That’s actually carelessness on our part.
Uh, we, you know, there are a lot of things we should not open up.
But Bill, people send you things all the time, and there’s pictures and there’s
all kinds of jokes and things.
How do you know which ones to open and which ones not to open?
Well, it is difficult, but I have a really... pretty small group of people that
I actually will open up e-mails.
I hope you open mine, Bill.
I do open yours.
OK.
Doris.
I always check them out too, well, though, you have to check them out.
Sometimes I ask Bill to check them out and say: Is this true or not? Isn’t that
right, Bill?
Yes.
But you know, it’s... it’s one of those kind of things that...
It’s probably that you’re being a little careless, and we’re going to find a
little bit more about this.
I think we’re going to have to read on more because there’s a lot to talk about
today.
OK. Let’s read thenext section.