Your computer, you should have total control over it.

[methomps]

Originally Posted by Clarity

As a rule of thumb, I create as complicated a password as the given site will allow.

I wish I knew this a month ago when I dedicated myself to figuring out your password. There is 2 hours a day for 30 days of my life I'll never get back.

I was about to try your suggestion until I realized that I use several different computers.

But I will pass on this link to a couple people. Great thread, btw

[daddyphatsacs]

Ive got a question for you computer gurus.

On my wife's computer the CD drive isn't working. I will push the eject button and it will open, but when I stick a disk in there it won't read the disk. Sometimes the eject button will not even work. Anyhow, I checked to make sure the drive wasn't uninstalled, and it was not.

The crazy thing is that the disk drive was opening and closing for no reason a few months ago, which I thought was probably a virus. I ran several scans on it (although not with the best virus scanning software) and nothing surfaced. I have searched the web for information in regards to this, but have had no luck.

Any suggestions?

[BrutusMaximus]

Probably just the drive going bad. As a longshot though, try replacing the IDE cable on it, that could cause it not to read. If I had to put money on it though, I'd bet the drive is [censored]ting out.

[MililaniBuckeye]

Originally Posted by Clarity

...You could just as easily have it generate something of 8 characters, made up of just lower and upper-case letters, numbers, and basic symbols. Something like;

s6:ay$D(

That's 53 bits. Very secure. Less scary looking. You could even memorize those. I have about a dozen of them permanently engrained on my brain from past use, and would use those as a more secure alternative when I didn't use (and now I'm giving away old password habits, but it doesn't really matter) my rifle numbers from Parris Island and Camp LeJeune, or pistol number from Kaneohe Bay, which are only 24 bit in strength. Not so secure. Particularly since I used and re-used these everywhere for many years.

³ - To put that in perspective, we were generated passwords around 53-bit strength when working on DoD computers in ultra-secure SCIFs for NSA/SIGINT purposes. That was early 90's, I'm sure they use something stronger now (although 53 is pretty damn secure itself), but the point is that 508-bit is almost funny...

The Air Force is moving from a minimum 8-character password to 12-character password, requiring a minimum of 2-each of upper case, lower case, number digit, and special characters. And that's for just every day plain John and Jane Doe network users. I had just changed my old password to O$U37M!ch21 (easy to remember ) about two weeks prior, but had to change it again because it was only 11, and not 12, characters long. I was not happy.

[NJ-Buckeye]

Originally Posted by MililaniBuckeye

The Air Force is moving from a minimum 8-character password to 12-character password, requiring a minimum of 2-each of upper case, lower case, number digit, and special characters...

I can understand why they would do this.. but hopefully they have a very easy password reset because NO ONE will remember their passwords.. folks will start writing them down and pasting them to their desks again...

[sandgk]

Originally Posted by NJ-Buckeye

I can understand why they would do this.. but hopefully they have a very easy password reset because NO ONE will remember their passwords.. folks will start writing them down and pasting them to their desks again...

At our workplace we have to change the password every 2-3 months.
Password length is minimum 10, must contain mixed upp-lower, cannot have known word string in it, must contain at least one number and use at least one punctuation mark or character from Shift-Number range.

And it is hard to avoid falling into the following trap...

Devise a password meeting all the above criteria .. say a mnemonic with an inserted numerical character and one punctuation mark.

Then --

When the system asks for an updated password ...

Use the original string -- just substituting one punctuation mark (say a comma) for the original (say a backslash).

I know folks who do just this to create a new passsword. Always struck me as an invitation to a hacker with a talent for substitution ciphers. Always struck me the system should come back with -- too many characters in new password match old password!

[MililaniBuckeye]

sandgk: The USAF has this feature that check not only previous passwords to make sure you don't reuse them, but also if they are "too similar". Thus, folks where you work wouldn't be able to get away with changing Th3B0ssSux! to Th3B0ssSux?.

[Brutus1]

I'm currently having bad problems with my computer which is REALLY slowing down my internet. I have DSL, but it acts like i'm still using dial up. I run Adaware every day, but it still doesn't fix the problem. Do any of you guys know if any/which of Clarity's solutions on page one might fix my problem?
When I run the Adaware, I usually get around 15-25 questionable objects. I've tried going to msconfig and changing my startup items, with little change.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I also have my son's computer on the network and his is slow also. Thanks

[exhawg]

Whenever my computer gets bad I reinstall Windows. The only way to make it like new would be to back up your files and reinstall. Not sure if that helps. I've already reinstalled window's 3-4 times this year on my 2 computers because I'm trying out some video editing software.

[bucksn'boobs]

I don't want to start a war here, but my advise is to go out and get yourself a Mac. I have a Dell that is collecting dust right now because I bought a Mac G4 iBook and it changed my life. I had to reformat my Dell three times because of regenerating spyware, and this is with ad-aware, hijack this, spybot, and a few others. I have no intention of flaming PC people, and I've been told PC has some advantages. I will speak for myself when I say that the thought of going back to Windows XP is laughable. The Mac OSX 10 operating system has features that make XP look silly. I had to switch to Mac because I am in the film business, where everything is Mac. Since I have had my Mac, I have not had one problem. I have not met one person who has regreted swiching over. I have found there to be almost no cross-compatability problems, and everything makes more sense, so it is easy to learn the OS. Just trying to help.

[CleveBucks]

Getting a Mac definitely has its merits. No doubt about that. However, if you know what you're doing, you won't have to worry about spyware, virii, etc.

[NJ-Buckeye]

I just reinstalled ME on one of my desktops... but now I can't get my wireless reinstalled on the box.. seems to be missing drivers altho not sure which ones.. and it won't let me install the driver coming with my Linksys board... any ideas?

I need ME on that box because a number of my youngest's games won't run on OS beyond that...

Boobs, tell me more about that Dell you have 'for sale'? .. and do you chose Mac because you're into advertising or some graphics profession?

[bucknut11]

ME would probably be the problem. I'd try Windows 2000 or if that doesn't work, drop back to Win 98. ME was the worst OS Microsoft pretended to make.

[bucksn'boobs]

Originally Posted by NJ-Buckeye

I just reinstalled ME on one of my desktops... but now I can't get my wireless reinstalled on the box.. seems to be missing drivers altho not sure which ones.. and it won't let me install the driver coming with my Linksys board... any ideas?

I need ME on that box because a number of my youngest's games won't run on OS beyond that...

Boobs, tell me more about that Dell you have 'for sale'? .. and do you chose Mac because you're into advertising or some graphics profession?

I work in film production (commercials & music videos). The whole business is Mac based along with most of the music/graphic design biz. The Avid film editing system is windows based and had been the standard for years but they are now getting their lunch eaten by the Mac based Final Cut Pro. I should also say that if you are a PC gamer, I have heard that PC is better than Mac in this regard. I don't do much gaming so I can't say for sure.

I'm not sure what I will do w/ the Dell I own. After I re-formatted for the third time I discovered that I lost the Microsoft Office product key password so now I can't use word/excel, etc. I really don't feel comfortable selling someone this thing right now. Does anyone have suggestions regarding this product key problem? I have tried freeware to extract it among other things .

[BrutusMaximus]

I have a dead Mac Powerbook G4 sitting next to me right here. The OS is [censored]ed, the cd drive is [censored]ed, and ya cant fix it, so it'll probably cost about $500 total to get repaired after shipping it away for 2 months. [censored] Macs.

Brutus1 - if you are running Windows XP, make sure you get service pack 2 installed, then download Macafee Stinger and run a scan with it. You probably have some trojans on there that are killing your bandwidth, I deal with that stuff on a daily basis.

ME would probably be the problem. I'd try Windows 2000 or if that doesn't work, drop back to Win 98. ME was the worst OS Microsoft pretended to make.

Amen to that, ME sucks balls. 98 SE would be a much better choice. Although i dont see what games wouldnt run on XP, unless you're talking about very old DOS games.