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Harry Waldron - Microsoft MVP Blog

Security News and Best Practices for corporate and home users

Would you trade a cup of coffee for your password?

 

http://news.com.com/2061-10789-5697143.html

Quote: Security vendor VeriSign found 66 percent would choose to give up their passwords for a Starbucks coffee, during an informal on-the-street survey conducted Thursday in San Francisco ... Those that revealed their password or gave hints received a $3 gift card for Starbucks--the price of a latte

This study is sponsored by VeriSign (a leader in digital certificate technologies), so I'm confident 66% of folks surveyed would not truly reveal their passwords. The 66% may have provided a false password or more likely clues on their passwords. Most likely, the true number who would reveal their true passwords is probably less than 10%.

Still, individuals should do their utmost to protect all of their passwords. In helping in security issues, I've actually had folks send me their ISP or email account name and password. Sometimes a good strong password is the only lock you have to keep the bad guys out.

This same techique of trying to get users to reveal passwords was used about a year ago.

Would you trade your password for Chocolate?

P.S. Wonder if Starbucks has "Chocolate flavored Coffee"

Only published comments... May 08 2005, 09:06 AM by harry

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