Protecting Your Passwords and PINs

There is a surprising (or perhaps unsurprising) lack of sophistication with how many people set PINs and passwords.  A study done by Data Genetics analyzed passwords from released or exposed password tables and found that the most common 4 digit password was "1234."  "1111," "0000," and other strings of the same number were also very common.  A list of most common passwords published by SplashData include "password" and "123456."  Others on the list that might be slightly more sophisticated include "qwerty" and "qazwsx" for passwords and "2580" for PINs.  You can easily see that these just have to deal with the placement of the characters on the keypad or keyboard to help people remember them easily.  However, this makes it extremely easy for someone to just guess what your secret code is if you lose your ATM or credit card.

Duolingo: Learn a language for free

The Eisenhower Box

We all try to make the best use of our short time here on Earth.  It is important to manage our time wisely to maximize its value, so I thought I'd spend a post talking about how to become more productive and how best to plan ways to budget your time to reach your goals.  I thought I'd focus on a really interesting method to prioritize your to-do lists called the Eisenhower Box.  I will also talk about Pareto analysis and the POSEC method in a future post.