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Collection #1 Password Breach
Posted 6 years agoHeads up
Earlier this month, a gigantic collection of email addresses and plaintext (meaning unencrypted) passwords was discovered circulating the web, involving over two billion combinations. Known as "Collection #1", this is a huge security risk and very, very easily could have affected everyone here, hence the dedicated announcement.
What to do
First of all, don't panic. These aren't an ongoing problem, they were gathered once and after changing your password on an affected account it will no longer be vulnerable. Use services like haveibeenpwned.com to check your email addresses and passwords to check if they were potentially affected, and which passwords you'll need to change.
https://haveibeenpwned.com/
https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords
https://haveibeenpwned.com/PwnedWebsites
Second, get yourself a password manager of some sort. Google has one built right into Chrome, which is actually quite nice, but it doesn't really work for anything besides Chrome, so you can't really use it for game passwords or whatever. A better idea would be to get something like LastPass or 1Password, which are dedicated password managers that, as the name would imply, mean that you only have to remember one password, and it's the last password you'll have to remember.
https://www.lastpass.com/
https://1password.com/
Third, stop reusing old passwords. If your password appears in that list in conjunction with a username you've used it previously on, any future websites you make an account on using that combination are automatically insecure. The point of a password manager is to allow you to have hypercomplex passwords that are all unique to each account ("ceGXe2*1KF&Dxz2hYk6V" is one that I generated just now with LastPass). If you can remember all your passwords, then there's a problem.
Final notes
I know this is work and you probably might not want to do anything about it, but the truth is this kind of thing is actually a huge problem, and could be potentially catastrophic if a password you used for, say, your bank account was one of the ones that were breached. If you don't particularly care about an account on something, then that's fine and you shouldn't worry about it unless, again, it has access to your bank information. Once you get a password manager, though, it'll actually make your life quite a bit easier and a heck of a lot more secure than it used to be, making it one of the rare security measures that actually removes work.
Earlier this month, a gigantic collection of email addresses and plaintext (meaning unencrypted) passwords was discovered circulating the web, involving over two billion combinations. Known as "Collection #1", this is a huge security risk and very, very easily could have affected everyone here, hence the dedicated announcement.
What to do
First of all, don't panic. These aren't an ongoing problem, they were gathered once and after changing your password on an affected account it will no longer be vulnerable. Use services like haveibeenpwned.com to check your email addresses and passwords to check if they were potentially affected, and which passwords you'll need to change.
https://haveibeenpwned.com/
https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords
https://haveibeenpwned.com/PwnedWebsites
Second, get yourself a password manager of some sort. Google has one built right into Chrome, which is actually quite nice, but it doesn't really work for anything besides Chrome, so you can't really use it for game passwords or whatever. A better idea would be to get something like LastPass or 1Password, which are dedicated password managers that, as the name would imply, mean that you only have to remember one password, and it's the last password you'll have to remember.
https://www.lastpass.com/
https://1password.com/
Third, stop reusing old passwords. If your password appears in that list in conjunction with a username you've used it previously on, any future websites you make an account on using that combination are automatically insecure. The point of a password manager is to allow you to have hypercomplex passwords that are all unique to each account ("ceGXe2*1KF&Dxz2hYk6V" is one that I generated just now with LastPass). If you can remember all your passwords, then there's a problem.
Final notes
I know this is work and you probably might not want to do anything about it, but the truth is this kind of thing is actually a huge problem, and could be potentially catastrophic if a password you used for, say, your bank account was one of the ones that were breached. If you don't particularly care about an account on something, then that's fine and you shouldn't worry about it unless, again, it has access to your bank information. Once you get a password manager, though, it'll actually make your life quite a bit easier and a heck of a lot more secure than it used to be, making it one of the rare security measures that actually removes work.
Happy Eclipse Day!
Posted 8 years agoI went down to Idaho Falls to watch the total eclipse over the United States, and it was awesome. For those of you who missed it, the next one over the US is in 2024. If you happen to live in Illinois, you're lucky. You get to see both of them without having to go anywhere.
If I had a 3D Printer...
Posted 8 years agoThere's a lot of things I would like to do with a printer like that. I could run a small printing business, prototype new designs for game controllers, make little trinket stands for my crystal collection, the list is basically endless.
One thing I'd really want to do is make a fully mechanized fursuit, if not for myself then for a friend. Basically, it'd have little servos in the eyes, ears, nose, etc. with little sensors set up inside the mask, so when you do something like blink or raise your eyebrows, the mask would do the same thing. I think that'd be really cool, but I'd need a lot of custom little gears and gizmos to make it work properly, so I'd need a printer for it. Maybe also something in the tail that would amplify your hip movement, I dunno.
One thing I'd really want to do is make a fully mechanized fursuit, if not for myself then for a friend. Basically, it'd have little servos in the eyes, ears, nose, etc. with little sensors set up inside the mask, so when you do something like blink or raise your eyebrows, the mask would do the same thing. I think that'd be really cool, but I'd need a lot of custom little gears and gizmos to make it work properly, so I'd need a printer for it. Maybe also something in the tail that would amplify your hip movement, I dunno.
An excellent throwback
Posted 10 years agoFor those of you who may not be aware, some of the developers from Rare Ltd., the creators of Banjo-Kazooie, have banded together to form a new studio, Playtonic Games, and are creating a rather stunning project for their debut. It's for the modern era consoles, but would look quite at home in the era of games like Pac-Man World, Crash Bandicoot, and, of course, Banjo-Kazooie itself. It's called Yooka-Laylee (say it out loud), and looking at the gameplay footage they've put out, it reminds me of all the fun I had as a kid playing the cartoony gather-fest games. Unlike them, however, Playtonic has all of the processing power of the modern age behind their creation, allowing for even more stunning visuals, more complex levels and enemies, and longer, more expanive worlds to play in. I'm probably not the best (or easily comprehensible) place to learn about this from, though, so why not go ahead and check out their kickstarter page and see this wonderful new platformer for yourself!
