I have a new book out entitled, The Password Book. Allow me to speak candidly about one of the tensions in our world of technology. As people who know me, or who have taken a course from me know, my favorite saying is by Voltaire, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
Voltaire is explaining (in case you don't get it), that if you have an image of a "perfect" husband or "perfect" wife (for example), that image of "the perfect" will make you very unhappy vs. your otherwise "pretty good" husband or wife. You'll be unhappy, and you'll communicate that unhappiness to your spouse. Your "real" spouse can never live up to the "perfect" spouse, and they will always fall short.
Internet Security and Password Books
So it goes with Internet security. Yes we should all have ten digit passwords that include both a capital and lower case letter, a number, random letters, and of course (who could forget) a non-alphanumeric character like a !, a % or a #. And we should never use the same password on any two sites. And we should run our virus scanner every day, and we should never download anything, etc. etc. OF COURSE WE SHOULD.
But we don't and we won't. We can't live up to that perfect standard of perfect security. So we get discouraged and give up and make our passwords on all website (including our bank) something stupid like password123 or if we're clever password327 or if we're very clever something like cat731.
The Password Book isn't about perfect security. It's about better security. I go over scams (and how they work) and upgrades to your email, your phone, and your bank to make them better. I explain two-step verification and how important it is.
Will this make you invulnerable to hackers? OF COURSE NOT. But will it make you less vulnerable? YES IT WILL. The Password Book, like other password books, has a place to write down passwords, but really it's a book inspired by Voltaire.
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