1.19.2006

How to find stuff other people hide

Isn't that the problem, really, with a book about how to hide your secret stuff? Well, just a thought. In any event, if you've got something really secret and want to hide it where I'll be sure to find it here's just the book for you. (e sends along the link to an outfit called Loompanics which sells lots of other wacky books too - all at a steep discount, as it's going out of business. Could be a reason for that, but I won't speculate.)

Anyway you probably have some money left for buying books since you missed out on buying William Shatner's kidney stone. (You think I'm kidding but I'm not.)

By the way, on the subject of hiding stuff where other people can find it, I gave my class the sermonette on passwords today. And here's a little part of it for you: do not use a password somebody else has given you as an example. (Duh.)

Thinking on passwords seems always to be in flux. Here's the latest formulation (I've seen): at least 8 characters, containing at least one upper case and one lower case alpha character, one numeral, and one punctuation mark. And (New! Improved!) it's now OK to write it down and carry it around in your wallet or your purse (but don't write it on a sticky note and paste it to your monitor, please). If you write it down don't put the name of the account it goes with - just the password by itself.

Those who do this thinking reason thusly: People hesitate to use strong passwords because they tend to be more difficult to remember. People carry around in their wallets or purses or elsewhere documents they are careful not to lose (like credit cards, for example); you can keep a written password reasonably safe. And it's better in the long run to use a strong password you have to write down to remember than to use a weak password that may be easy to remember but also easy to guess.

There. Now you've had the sermonette, yourself.

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