Open Sesame

It may sound paranoid, but with hackers lurking in every corner of the Web, you have to take Internet security extremely seriously.

If you want to safeguard your data you need to lock it up. And in cyberspace you do this by using passwords (strings of widely different unrelated characters).
But there are locks and there are locks, and some are ridiculously easy to pick.

IMG_3355 - Version 2

 

Some passwords (undoubtedly created in a weed haze) like 123456, password, qwerty, Iloveyou, baseball, dragon, football, monkey, letmein, abc123, 111111 provide laughable protection against intruders.
With passwords like this, a first grade hacker could infiltrate your system within minutes.

 

To maximize the buoyancy of your cyber vessel you must divide it into watertight compartments and bulkheads and you want to use a different password for all the sites you do business with.

If an intruder can get hold of one of your passwords, it should not give him carte blanche to visit and loot all your accounts.

I am painfully aware of computer security and I use no less than 92 different (12 digits) passwords in my daily routines.
Sigh…

But managing passwords can be a real challenge, especially when you have to update them on a regular basis.
You need to carefully track your passwords and put on paper any change you make, including the date you do it.

If you want to be ultra safe, you could also encrypt your data.
On a Mac, you would use the FireVault feature to do this.

When FileVault is enabled the system invites the user to create a master password for the computer. If a user password is forgotten, the master password or recovery key may be used to decrypt the files instead.

It sounds pretty straightforward but it is not. Before encrypting your files, make pretty damn sure that your write down the master password and the recovery Key (24 digits). Otherwise you will be in Big Poopoo.

But the password system is cumbersome and obsolete.
We need something simpler and more secure to navigate the Internet.

I think that the Next Big Thing is going to be a system that identifies you quickly and accurately as the legitimate owner of an account, without going to the trouble of entering a complicated password each time you go online.

What is it going to be? Retina scanning? Voice recognition?
Chi lo sa?

But the guy (or the guyette) who can make it happen is going to be amply rewarded.

Kids, start coding! There is gold is them thar hills!

In the meantime, use 12 digits passwords whenever you use a credit card to purchase something online.
And please, unless you like to suffer, forget “letmein” or “Iloveyou”.

Alain

Laughter therapy

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.
Mark Twain

Totally agree with you mister Clemens!
Laughter (except maybe for the Roman Gladius sword) is the best defensive and offensive weapon of all times.
It is also the best shield against intolerance and narrow-mindedness. And Heavens knows that we need that!

It is difficult to prevent people from laughing, but some prigs will try it.
Bülent Arınç (a “mildly Islamic” Turkish politician) thinks that Turkish women must remain “decent” and “not laugh uproariously in public”.
WTF dude? Threatened by the weaker sex? Phooey! Double phooey!

Let’s not forget that laughter is therapeutic. And Instead of prescribing an ever-increasing array of horse pills, doctors should offer Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) or ten straight episodes of Seinfeld to their patients. It would be cheaper and more effective than those bloody pills.

A German asks a Mexican if they have any Jews in Mexico. The Mexican says, “Sí señor, we have orange jews, apple jews, and grape jews!”

Didn’t you chuckle? Of course you did! And don’t you feel better? Of course you do!
I suspect that people who don’t laugh are permanently constipated.

To stop conflicts you should make people laugh.
For instance Sunnis and Shias are slaughtering each other for some obscure reason.
If one Sunni comedian could perform in front of a bunch of Shias and make them laugh, much bloodshed could be avoided.
Or, he could kill them all with laughter.

Laughter is also very appealing.

Marilyn Monroe radiant“If you can make a woman laugh, you can make her do anything.”
Marilyn Monroe

I believe that Norma Jean. You don’t have to ply a woman with drinks and precious stones to seduce her. Just make her laugh and she is yours.

To sum it up, laugh whenever you can. Laugh at everybody and everything. Nothing is sacred. If it is, for goodness sake, quickly desacralize it with laughter.

Alain

Thank you to Carolina Jones for providing me with the following video:

https://youtu.be/jLI6VA40oUs

Golden Boy

I have not bitched for a while. This situation is stressful and unhealthy.
Keeping a stiff upper lip and emotions bottled up is a dangerous combination.
Just like hydrogen gas, it might blow up unexpectedly.
It is wise to remember that “a bitch a day keeps the shrink away.”

But before I start venting, I would like to salute William Bruce Jenner.
Because it takes a lot of balls to do what this man just did.

At age 65 Bruce Jenner went public, and announced that he is a transgender and will transition to womanhood.
This is a very gutsy decision and it takes a lot of heart to do that.

gal-olympians-6-jpgBruce Jenner. The Golden Boy. Decathlon Gold medal winner at the 1976 Summer Olympics held in Montreal.
All American hero. The embodiment of virility. The perfect male specimen. Father of 6 children.

After a lifetime of pretending, in an emotional TV interview with Diane Sawyer, Bruce comes clean and said in that he never felt comfortable being a man. He might have had the physical attributes of a male, but deep in his heart, Bruce always felt like woman.

Contrarily to what some fools assert, you are born a transgender, lesbian or homosexual, and there is no “cure” for it.
So you may as well embrace who you really are.

And it is becoming easier, thanks to courageous people like Bruce.

Nobody chose to be homosexual or transgender. It is a fluke of nature.
For a long time LGBT people (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) were ridiculed and discriminated against.
To change this perception takes a few ballsy celebrities. These people are different, but not weird.
And what business of yours is it anyway to interfere with their lifestyle?

I applaud Bruce’s decisions to go public and choose a way of life he feels most comfortable with.
No matter what happens, he is still an Olympic champion and nobody can take this away from him.
In my eyes, he is the embodiment of determination and courage!

So long Bruce and may the wind always be at your back.

“May neighbors respect you,
The angels protect you,
The angels protect you,
And heaven accept you.”

I am now too tired to bitch but take heart, I’ll be back soon with plenty to “kvetch” about.

Alain