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Issue #284: December 30, 2012
Q: Chuckie the Badger calling again. I am ready to come south. Is there any way I can set up a home temperature monitor that I can use with an app on my Ipod touch to check the temp when I am in Florida? It would provide me peace of mind.
– Charles M.
Marshfield, Wisconsin
A: Sure, Chuckie, I can think of several ways, depending on just exactly what you want to do and how much money you want to spend.
I found a number of good solutions by simply heading over to my favorite search engine and entering “remote temperature monitor iphone”. Many of the solutions actually go far beyond temperature monitoring to temperature control, and even into full-blown home automation. If you’re not familiar with that term, it basically means controlling the electrical system in your home via a computer, a dedicated control system, or some other sort of remote controls. Many such systems exist today, and with the near-universal availability of a network connection, it’s a snap to stay connected to your home no matter how far you travel. I’d like to offer you one other alternative. At my house, I have a security camera system that connects to a central digital video recorder that stores the view from each of the cameras. This very compact system also connects to the Internet, allowing me to view my cameras while I am away from home, including from my smart device. If I was to point one of my cameras at a large-text thermometer, I’d have a simple means of checking the remote temperature any time I wanted to. These video systems are surprisingly inexpensive, at only a couple hundred dollars for a system that supports as many as eight cameras. They generally include some form of night-vision capability as well. Talk about peace of mind! How about being able to visually check-up on your entire home while you’re away?
Q: What is the most secure password there is using Microsoft programs?
– Jim R.
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
A: I don’t believe there is an actual answer to that question, Jim. It’s like asking what is the longest unit of time, or the farthest distance. However, I can give you some advice on creating secure passwords, and hopefully that will answer your question.
Did you know that the most common password in use today is the literal word “password”? I guess people think this is so obvious that it is somehow clever, but savvy hackers know that trying that first will be the most likely way in to someone’s system. They also know all the other tricks people use to create passwords using birthdays, addresses, anniversaries, names of spouses, children, pets, etc. It’s not as clever as you might think, and these passwords are extremely easy to guess. It’s also not a good idea to make your password any dictionary word or proper name, because automated password guessing software can try every word in the dictionary in only a few minutes, and easily crack your password. Adding a number or a random capital letter can take such a password from very unsecure to moderately to highly secure, because they are tougher to guess. But that practice is easy to take too far. If you pick a password that is made of such a random hodge-podge of letters and numbers that you can’t remember it you’ll wind up writing it down, making it vulnerable to viewing and/or theft. The best passwords are those you can remember easily, that are made-up of at least 8 characters, and have a mixture of capital and lower-case letters, plus at least one number and one special character. You can create a password or pass phrase by starting with something simple, and then changing it up a bet. For example, if you are a lover of dachshunds, you might start with the phrase “lovesdachshunds”. That’s good, because it’s relatively long, but would still be pretty easy to guess. So strengthen it with random capital letters, making it “loVesdachshUnds”, then substitute in a few special characters for similarly-shaped letters, such as “!oVe$d@c#shUnds”. Such a password is extremely secure, from both human hackers, and software-based password crackers, and it’s personal enough that you shouldn’t have to write it down.
This is my last column for 2012, dear Geeks! Thank-you for your readership and support throughout this year. I’m looking forward to much more in 2013. Happy New Year!
One Response to “Issue #284: December 30, 2012”
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Thank you for your response to my question. I already knew the answer as I have been in IT for 47 years. There are two very secure passwords the ones you described and another that if you use Windows security for passwords cannot be broke by any known program (unless changed since I retired 3 years ago). I had an instructor at a government school who said that the most secure password uses the spacebar (it is a special character) within the password. What I used to teach my clients was to create some form of the following password “10 My Wifes name is Linda” (all the spaces is the space bar and without quotes). Then when you need to change your password all you have to change is the 10 to another number and leave the rest the same. The computer when it checks the validity of your password accepts it as it also does not know what is past the first space. When I went to school the first thing we had to do was enter our user name and password into the system and then they would run a password hacking program, mine immediately came back saying “unable to determine length of password” and everyone elses password would be broke within 6 to 48 hours.