re Artificial intelligence just made guessing your password a whole lot easier | Science | AAAS

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Geoff Kuenning <geoff () cs hmc edu>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Artificial intelligence just made guessing your password a whole lot easier | Science | AAAS
> Date: September 16, 2017 at 7:56:21 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
>
> This article is seriously misleading.  In the first place, it is talking about leaked hashes.  Leaked hashes are a 
> problem, but the reality is that if a Web site has been compromised enough to leak the password hashes then it's 
> highly likely that information much more sensitive than your password has been harvested.  On the other hand, if 
> hashes aren't leaked then the achievable guessing rate is vastly slower, so even moderately bad passwords are likely 
> to be safe.
>
> A much bigger reason is that a lot of people use different password strengths for different sites.  I have an account 
> on one commercial site where my password is "password"; that's because (a) they chose that password and I was so 
> offended that I left it that way and (b) if the account is compromised it doesn't hurt me in any way (although the 
> intruder could get some free services). Likewise, my LinkedIn password is quite weak, because I don't really care if 
> somebody breaks into my LinkedIn account.  The worst they could do would be annoying but no more.
>
> So the passwords they trained (from LinkedIn and a gaming site) on are not necessarily representative of the ones 
> used for more serious activities like online banking.  And in any case, they can't use their neural net effectively 
> against the login page of an online site.
>
> > http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/09/artificial-intelligence-just-made-guessing-your-password-whole-lot-easier
>
> -- 
>   Geoff Kuenning   geoff () cs hmc edu    http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~geoff/
>
> McDonald's, which does not wait on your table, does not cook your food
> to order, and does not clear your table, came up with the slogan ``We
> Do It All For You.''
>       -- Dave Barry



-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/18849915-ae8fa580
Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-aa268125
Unsubscribe Now: 
https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-32545cb4&post_id=20170916202021:FB705720-9B3D-11E7-BC6E-EE5E2EA504FA
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com