Issue 11 April 2011
Quantum
HEALTH
A Very Short History of April Fool’s Day
You probably don’t lose sleep wondering about the origins of something as silly as April Fool’s Day, but it actually has a fascinating history, although that history is shrouded in mystery. One common theory for its origins says that before the year 154 B.C., New Year’s Day fell on April 1. After calendar revisions (perhaps the shift in the 1500s to the Gregorian calendar) New Year’s Day changed to January 1. But some stubborn people, averse to change, refused to acknowledge the new date and so continued to celebrate the old New Year’s Day. Hence, they were called “April Fools.” Another common theory ties it back to ancient springtime festivals, where merriment and pranks marked the shift from the dark days of winter to the sunny ones of spring.
most common names found in passwords are (in order) Nicole, Daniel, Jessica, Michael and Ashley.
Better Computer Passwords
How secure is your computer? Despite the ever- increasing threat of hackers and cybersnoopers, most of us are lazy when it comes to creating secure passwords. Reports say that most people create passwords of six characters or less, which is too short to be secure. They also tend to be a common mix of letters or numbers, or both . Believe it or not, the most common password is 123456. And abc123 is among the top 20 most common passwords. An equally common problem is that easily breakable passwords use common words or names: two of the most popular word-based passwords are “password” and “qwerty” (the first six letters on the upper row of your keyboard). Among the
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So how do you construct a secure password? Experts suggest making it at least 14 characters long, using a wide variety of characters (letters, numbers, uppercase, lowercase, symbols) and choosing those characters from around the keyboard (instead of the letters and numbers you use or see most often).
What about remembering your password? Here is one strategy from Microsoft: Choose a sentence that is meaningful to you. Select the first letter of each word. Add complexity by making some of the letters uppercase. Add more complexity by adding symbols.
Here’s an example of the strategy. Let’s say this sentence is meaningful to me: I love to snow ski in the winter and surf in the summer. Taking the first letter of each word, my password would be: iltssitwasits. Adding complexity, I might end up with: #iltSSitwaSITS25%.
Two other computer protection tips are to change your passwords every few months and to beware of log-in options that let you store your password. Bad idea!
Quantum Health 15
Coffee Break
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