What’s with all these websites telling me what my password can and can’t be?
“Your password must contain at least one number, one uppercase letter, one symbol, and must be exactly 8 characters long.” For my former bank’s online service, not only did my password have to contain at least one number, but I was required to change it every 6 months, and the new password couldn’t be the same as any of my last 3 passwords. I don’t know what I find more disturbing about this. The fact that I’m being forced to change my password when you can barely do shit with online access to my account’s balance, or the fact that they have cached my previous 3 passwords somewhere on their server for no justifiable reason.
I can sort of almost understand doing this with online banking, but this is just ridiculous:
Who the fuck is going to waste their time trying to guess the password to my WebMD account? Even if they did, what could they possibly do with it? If you’re storing some kind of sensitive information on a WebMD account that warrants a complex password, you’re probably better off not using the internet. Even a password isn’t secure.
This one time, I hijacked some guy’s Photobucket account by tricking the staff into thinking I was him. Here’s the transcript of the email exchange between the inept Photobucket staff and I:
Me:
The past few days, I have been subjected to numerous hack attempts on my email addresses. The culprit managed to enter my main email account, and now I can’t access it. My guess is he changed the password. When I filled out the Security Question for the account during creation, I didn’t put real info. Now, I have no access to my account.
Anyway, by gaining access to this account, he now has access to passwords for other accounts of mine. I attempted to log into my Photobucket, but received a message telling me my password was invalid. At first, I thought he may have deleted my account, but upon accessing my albums from the outside (i.e. not logged on), all my photos were still there.
I have no idea what to do. I created a new email account via Gmail with a different password. Is there any way I could get my Photobucket account back, registered to a new email, and with a reset password?
Any help is appreciated.
Photobucket:
Please provide the following information to prove you own the account. If the information you provide matches the registration information we have on record for the account, we will send you the current password:
What is the first and last name registered with the account?
What is your Photobucket username?
Please provide an estimate of how many images and videos are currently in the account.
What country was selected for the account?
What email address is currently registered with the account?
Approximately when was the account registered (year and month)?
What is the account owner’s date of birth?
What postal code was registered with the account?
Is the account a free or Pro account?
Are there any sub albums in the account? If so, please provide the name of one or two of the sub albums.
Please provide a detailed description of one or two unique images or videos from the account. (Ex: A woman with long brown hair, wearing a white coat with a fur collar, holding a mobile phone in her left hand)
Sincerely,
Your Photobucket Support Team
Me:
(Provides requested info, found mostly with Google)
Photobucket:
Thank you for sending the information required to validate ownership of your Photobucket Cyraka account. The information you provided matched with the data listed in the account.
Your password is: *Cyraka’s password* (please remember that passwords are case sensitive)
Please be sure to update both your password and your email address in your Account Options.
We are pleased that you can once again use and enjoy your Photobucket account.
Sincerely,
Your Photobucket Support Team
Pwnt.
This just goes to show you that no matter how many characters your password is or how many numbers or symbols are in it, it can in fact be broken if you have the right info.
The perfect password doesn’t even have phrases or words in it. My password is a combination of 7 numbers that not a single soul on Earth will ever guess. I usually put fake info into the zip code and birthdate things when registering accounts, and I make the answers to the “Secret Questions” nonsensical. For example: “What is your frequent flier number?” My answer: “Kerdooky.” Even if someone could manage to guess the fake info I used for my birthday and zip code, and wasn’t too intimidated by the idea of having to guess my “frequent flier number,” how the fuck could they ever figure out that the answer is “Kerdooky”? I’m only taking a wild guess here, but I probably have at least 100 different inactive email accounts sitting all over the internet because I created them for no reason. That’s not counting the 30 or so active ones that I use for different trolling gimmicks all over the place. Go ahead and laugh. But when you go to register the screen name “[email protected],” we’ll see who gets the last laugh (HINT: It’ll be me).
There are plenty of people who use numeric combinations for passwords. Unfortunately, these combinations are usually a) their Social Security Number, b) their birthdate, c) their phone number, or d) their address. You’re doing it wrong, idiots.
While we’re on the subject of passwords and registrations, nothing is more irritating than having to fill out an entire form, only to find that you entered the “CAPTCHA” thing in wrong. Then, it erases most of your info, and tries to re-check the box you unchecked so you don’t receive ads. Some of those CAPTCHA things are near impossible to read, and they never work anyway. Spam bots always seem to find a way around it and post streams of porn pictures, as if to mockingly say to forum users “You might as well get used to looking at this, because you’re not gonna get laid anytime soon, geeks.”
Another thing that disturbs me is that some of these registration forms have the ability to determine if the zip code you put in matches the location you selected. For example, it wouldn’t let me put my zip code as “19124” when I chose my city as Atlanta.
Anyways, I’ve gotta go log onto MySpace. Apparently if I don’t repost this bulletin in 2 minutes, I’ll be raped and murdered by a clown. Stephen King, eat your heart out. l8r.
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