Password strength and Anonymity for beginners. 03-25-2014, 10:47 PM
#1
Security is a process, not a product.
What do you see when you hear the word security? There are tons of ways to be safe online, but I would just like to discuss a few that are extremely simple and don't really require any knowledge whatsoever. Please read up if you've just gotten a new computer, learning online anonymity, or just want to keep your information secure on the net.
Passwords
One thing that I can not stress enough is having the strongest password you can have. Back a few years the brute force attack method was a very favorable choice of technique to stealing account passwords. Now it doesn't look like they are used too often as lots of website software such as MyBB are built with brute force prevention tactics. Nonetheless however, brute force attacks are still possible with rotating proxies and even sites that don't really enforce brute force protection. Let's talk a little bit about what you should have as a password and what you shouldn't have.
A persons average password length is only about 7 to 8 characters. Here's a few examples.
Those as you can see are very weak passwords. If you were to hire a company to test your website security, they would automatically have a list of passwords like that and attempt brute force against your panel.
Here are a list of good passwords I would recommend.
Of course I wouldn't see anyone remembering any of these but that's what the good old handy-dandy .txt files on your desktop can be used for. Passwords like these can literally take up to 540 million years to brute force!
Now let's say that well you register on a site and three days later the site database has been compromised. The attacker decodes your password of all people and now has your password and most likely your email. Not good if he were to know any other sites you register on. So make a text file on your computer and always have a different password for each place you register at.
I can personally tell you my password here at Sinister.ly is 12 characters long.
Anonymity
Nowadays it looks like the acronym 'DOX' is all over the place. DOX is an acronym for the word documents and people all around the world and I wouldn't be surprised even in this forum itself use Doxing to gather a ton of information about a specific individual. A complete DOX would contain a users real name, IP address, operating system, email, home address and much more even up to their SSN. Lot's of times this information is used for malicious purposes like harassment.
Luckily there are a few good ways to hide yourself from other people that could possibly damage your lifestyle.
First and foremost get a reliable VPN.
Getting a VPN is a great way to begin. A VPN is going to hide your IP address and mask a few other things that could expose your locations. I won't get too much into a VPN as I don't want to make this article too long so here is a Wikipedia link on what it is.
Note this. If you're going to be online for malicious, "black hat" purposes look for a VPN that isn't in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom or the United States of America. You're also going to want to look for one that doesn't save logs.
Keeping your information to yourself.
You have to keep your information private my friend, you can't tell people who you are and if you do at least make it all fake. Check out this bullet list for some simple tips.
If you can stick to these simple steps I'm very sure that it'll make things much more difficult for someone to find you.
Conclusion
For a conclusion I would first like to thank everyone who has read this. I wrote all this out myself for the Sinisterly community yet these two things have been heard of several times throughout the internet.
Keep your password length tight and never ever give out your personal information. This whole article focuses directly on helping you keep your accounts safe and your personal information out of the reach of others through very simple techniques.
Hope this helped!
What do you see when you hear the word security? There are tons of ways to be safe online, but I would just like to discuss a few that are extremely simple and don't really require any knowledge whatsoever. Please read up if you've just gotten a new computer, learning online anonymity, or just want to keep your information secure on the net.
Passwords
One thing that I can not stress enough is having the strongest password you can have. Back a few years the brute force attack method was a very favorable choice of technique to stealing account passwords. Now it doesn't look like they are used too often as lots of website software such as MyBB are built with brute force prevention tactics. Nonetheless however, brute force attacks are still possible with rotating proxies and even sites that don't really enforce brute force protection. Let's talk a little bit about what you should have as a password and what you shouldn't have.
A persons average password length is only about 7 to 8 characters. Here's a few examples.
Quote:password
hacking
windows7
windows8
letmein
Those as you can see are very weak passwords. If you were to hire a company to test your website security, they would automatically have a list of passwords like that and attempt brute force against your panel.
Here are a list of good passwords I would recommend.
Quote:8 sX1R}V3-|k
+883C18o97K)
:%#TtB^3/&L}
22a#=@60J=(t
+j~!TKkey2[L
Of course I wouldn't see anyone remembering any of these but that's what the good old handy-dandy .txt files on your desktop can be used for. Passwords like these can literally take up to 540 million years to brute force!
Now let's say that well you register on a site and three days later the site database has been compromised. The attacker decodes your password of all people and now has your password and most likely your email. Not good if he were to know any other sites you register on. So make a text file on your computer and always have a different password for each place you register at.
I can personally tell you my password here at Sinister.ly is 12 characters long.
Anonymity
Nowadays it looks like the acronym 'DOX' is all over the place. DOX is an acronym for the word documents and people all around the world and I wouldn't be surprised even in this forum itself use Doxing to gather a ton of information about a specific individual. A complete DOX would contain a users real name, IP address, operating system, email, home address and much more even up to their SSN. Lot's of times this information is used for malicious purposes like harassment.
Luckily there are a few good ways to hide yourself from other people that could possibly damage your lifestyle.
First and foremost get a reliable VPN.
Getting a VPN is a great way to begin. A VPN is going to hide your IP address and mask a few other things that could expose your locations. I won't get too much into a VPN as I don't want to make this article too long so here is a Wikipedia link on what it is.
Quote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network
Note this. If you're going to be online for malicious, "black hat" purposes look for a VPN that isn't in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom or the United States of America. You're also going to want to look for one that doesn't save logs.
Keeping your information to yourself.
You have to keep your information private my friend, you can't tell people who you are and if you do at least make it all fake. Check out this bullet list for some simple tips.
- Don't use your personal or business email. Make a fake one just for the internet!
- Don't ever tell someone your name. Even if it's just your first, not even your initials.
- Try using a different username for every website you register on. Make it something simple, not unique.
If you can stick to these simple steps I'm very sure that it'll make things much more difficult for someone to find you.
Conclusion
For a conclusion I would first like to thank everyone who has read this. I wrote all this out myself for the Sinisterly community yet these two things have been heard of several times throughout the internet.
Keep your password length tight and never ever give out your personal information. This whole article focuses directly on helping you keep your accounts safe and your personal information out of the reach of others through very simple techniques.
Hope this helped!
Be yourself. Don't listen to people that judge you. Lead as an example. Treat all with equality.
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