password

This is the second installment of a two part series on good password practices (part 1 is here ). You may recall that I previously discussed some poor and all-too-common password practices that people use. And while it's good for us to know what not ... to do, we also need to educate ourselves about the right way to choose and manage passwords. So without further ado, let's get started! How Passwords are "Cracked" To begin, a good password is difficult to guess. A good password will not be tied or related to any publicly known information about you, including your kid's names, pet's ... (view more)

Cmos Password Recovery Tools CmosPwd decrypts password stored in CMOS used to access BIOS setup. http://www.cgsecurity.org/ Photo Rec A little tool to recover pictures from digital camera memory. http://www.cgsecurity.org/ (view more)

Synopsis: Have trouble remembering all your passwords? Darn! Passwords! Pro keeps track of all those pesky passwords you need for the Internet, online services, financial sites, and other secure programs. All you need to do is remember one 'Master' ... password, and Darn! Passwords! remembers all the rest! It remembers web site addresses of password-protected web sites -- just pick the password, and drag it into the program or web site that requires a password. It's that simple; no retyping is necessary. For those programs that do not accept the drag and drop feature, you can just paste the ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Glenda 'LadyInRed' writes: " Dear Dennis, Since I am not that tech-savvy when it comes to making changes on a computer system, I have decided to ask this question. I hope that you can give me an answer to it, then I can stop ... trying to figure it out on my own. I have a son that is 27 years old and he is very intelligent when it comes to the computer. He likes to get on my computer since I have a fast Internet connection (DSL), and downloads music using Kazaa. The problem is that every time that Kazaa is installed onto my computer it causes a lot of problems. I have ... (view more)

Recall -- In Yesterday's Visitor Feedback, Infopackets Reader Marie B. asked how to enable the administrator user account in Windows XP. " I am the only user of my computer which has Windows XP installed. How do I sign into my computer as the ... 'administrator', rather than as my individual name? I understand that administration access is required to make certain changes to Windows. I don't need to adjust anything at this time, but would like to know how to do this in the future (just in case). " In my response to Marie, I suggested that the administrator user account name was disabled ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Dale D. writes: " Dear Dennis, I'm having trouble logging into my user account under Windows XP. It seems that my password is no longer valid and now I can't get in. The only way I can login to the system is to do so under my ... son's account which does not have administrative rights. Also, when I go to Control Panel -> Users (under my son's account), my user account is not listed. Any ideas how I can resolve this? " My response: Depending on the access level applied to your son's account, he may / may not be able to see any other accounts listed on the system. In ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Madelaine M. writes: " Lately, when I am trying to connect to the Internet, I get a message saying, 'Brute Force Server Error'. When I click the window, the error message disappears. I use Norton Anti-virus 2002 and Spy Sweeper to ... scan my system for viruses and Spyware. What else should I do to avoid this problem?" My response: I can say that I have never heard of this error message before. I did some research using Google, but wasn't able to come up with anything conclusive. However, what I did find is that the term "Brute Force" refers to a form of ... (view more)

Donna H. writes: " I have windows 2000 / NT. My administrative password timed out or somehow expired, and now I can't use any of the Administration computer management. How can I reset my Admin password? Thank you for reading this and any help is ... appreciated. " My response: I visited win2000mag.net and found instructions on how to use a program called Ntpasswd. The instructions given below are essentially verbatim, but have been changed slightly to "newbie speak" so it is easier to follow. http://www.win2000mag.net You can use Peter Nordahl's Ntpasswd tool to reset the ... (view more)

According to a recent IDC report , "more than 300 million business PCs have a combined 109,000 terabytes of data that is not backed up regularly -- which is about half of all the data on corporate PCs and laptops." That's 10 times the quantity of ... information in the entire Library of Congress! Unfortunately, I know first hand what it's like to lose important data. I never used a backup application until I had a hard drive containing hundreds of hours of writing, music, and video which all vanished in a blink of an eye. If it can happen to an "expert" computer user like me ... (view more)

I visit dozens of web sites daily, and many of them require a username and password. I once used RoboForm to manage my passwords and form field data. Recently, I discovered a program called AccountLogon which organizes my password information and ... protects my data with 448-bit ["blowfish"] encryption -- an encryption level higher than RoboForm Pro (3DES). Side note: A higher encryption level means greater security. In short, it would take a very skilled hacker to "crack" an encrypted 3DES file, and much (much!) longer to crack a 448-bit blowfish encrypted file. What is ... (view more)