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American Morning
Modern Life Complicated by Passwords
Aired May 08, 2002 - 08:57 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: For this next story, please have your PIN number ready. If you're like most people, you're experiencing password overload, and this isn't a laughing matter. Nowadays, it seems like everything we do requires a password, from getting cash at an ATM to getting into your car, and remembering them all is becoming a real challenge.
But as CNN's Jeanne Moos reports, help is on the way.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Back in the years BC, Before Computers, password was just a nice little game show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wool.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blanket.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MOOS: These days you want to hide under a blanket.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please enter your password.
MOOS: Old password, new password, change password, forgot your password?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One for the ATM, one to get in the garage door, one to get on AOL.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Personal, I probably have six, and then at work I have seven or eight.
MOOS: And the more we have, the more we resort to ones we can remember, sort of like the ruler forced to divulge his secret combination in "Space Balls."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three. That's the stupidest combination I ever heard in my life. That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MOOS: Why stop at luggage?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, honestly, I use one password for everything.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got to write everything down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Little cheat sheet, you know, used to have in college.
MOOS (on camera): By the computer?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By the computer, either underneath your keyboard, or behind your monitor.
MOOS: You are like a walking list of things you are not supposed to do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know.
MOOS (voice-over): Not supposed to do if you're into...
MARC BORODITSKY, CEO, PASSLOGIX: Good password hygiene.
MOOS: Which means maintaining security. Not easy in a world where a study a few years back showed the three most popular passwords were...
BORODITSKY: "Sex," "God," and "password."
MOOS: Marc Boroditski's firm, Passlogix, makes software lets you have have one password linked to technology that automatically signs you on everywhere with different, complex passwords. But who needs to remember a password...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You just need to remember your finger. MOOS: ... with fingerprint authentication?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Grabs it, authenticates me...
MOOS: Or maybe you'd prefer picture passwords. Imagine logging in by mixing your very own drink.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Throw some vodka in there. A little orange juice.
MOOS: Or making your own meal.
(on camera): Fish, carrots...
(voice-over): Change the ingredients or the order, and you can't log on.
(on camera): That's not the vodka.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I put gin in.
MOOS (voice-over): Sort of makes regular passwords seem quaint.
(on camera): Have you ever had any favorite ones, you know, that you're not using anymore, so we can reveal it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, "trust" is my favorite one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The "password" is courage.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Loveboat."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Ice cream" because it is my favorite food.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Spongelli."
MOOS: Pardon me?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Spongelli."
MOOS (voice-over): Hey, a made-up word is better. It can save you from programs that figure out passwords, known as dictionary attacks.
BORODITSKY: In other words, they can actually just load all 30,000 words in the dictionary and get to your password eventually.
MOOS: It is enough to drive you to drink. All those forgotten PINs, all those invalid passwords.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, one, one, one, one, one is not valid.
MOOS: No wonder we all feel like fish out of water.
(END VIDEOTAPE) MOOS: Now, since everyone is always being asked to create new passwords, we thought we would come up with a list of what we called passable tips for creating new passwords. Maybe they're not fabulous, but they are passable. There will be a quiz, so pay attention -- at the end.
ZAHN: OK.
MOOS: Number one, what you should do in an ideal world is pick a random series of letters, numbers, and symbols.
ZAHN: Yes, right, and then remember them.
MOOS: Yes, exactly.
ZAHN: Oh, sure, Jeanne.
MOOS: So, forget number one. Let's go to number two immediately. This one is OK. Try picking two words, put them together, and throw in some punctuation. For instance, you get "deadhamster," exclamation point.
ZAHN: Oh, now that would be delightful to logon that way every day.
MOOS: But easy to remember, and it avoids the dictionary attack. If someone -- you know, they can go through every word in the dictionary if you just use a single word. So this avoids that. One of my personal favorites is misspell a word on purpose, so it is easy to remember. You have to continue to remember to misspell it the same way.
ZAHN: Right. Well, some of us wouldn't have to do that on purpose, Jeanne.
MOOS: Yes, yes, well, actually, that's one of my passwords was an accidental misspelling that I've kept.
This next one is kind of hard to explain, but you pick a word, you type each letter of that word on the row of keys that is directly above the original letter. So you pick an easy word -- let's say your password was "cat" and you would pick the letter above the "c" and the letter above the "a" and the letter above the "t," and you would end up "DQ5."
ZAHN: Now, would that work for you, Tim?
TIM GREEN, AUTHOR: I never worry about passwords. I always tell -- you know, I come up with a password, and I just tell everyone. You know what I'm saying? Or I write it down, as the one guy did.
MOOS: Well, one of the things that is hard with this is people don't think they have anything worth protecting.
GREEN: That's my problem. MOOS: And I sort of argued that, but the expert says, for instance, on our system here, I think there's nothing worth looking at of mine here, but it would allow you to get into the CNN system.
ZAHN: Right.
MOOS: And fool around in there. I have some more tips. This is the one everyone does -- shouldn't do. What you've got to do is avoid personal info. No birthday, no names of spouses, or pets, or kids. And this is the one. I mean, who doesn't use a date?
ZAHN: Well, who doesn't use a date over and over and over again? Those of us that don't want to be hassled and stumped every time we go to the ATM?
GREEN: The fingerprint thing is the key. The fingerprint is going to be the key. It is going to save us all. Make it all irrelevant.
MOOS: You're also supposed to change them frequently...
GREEN: Your fingerprint?
MOOS: Well, no, no. Your password.
ZAHN: That too.
MOOS: I've had mine for 20 years.
ZAHN: Your fingerprint or your password?
MOOS: We won't talk about how long I have had the fingerprint.
ZAHN: You use birthdays?
(CROSSTALK)
GREEN: I use some birthdays. I use my old football number.
ZAHN: Oh -- now he's gone public with that.
GREEN: Yes, but you don't know which one. Was it my high school number or my college number, or my...
ZAHN: Or your professional number? We will set the audience to work on that one.
GREEN: I'll be hacked this afternoon.
ZAHN: All right. Thanks, Jeanne. We'll see if anybody follows any of those tips.
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