E-mail and Paswords Don't Mix!

I've been happy to see that all the major internet companies (ie. Amazon, ebay...) will never send your password to your e-mail in plain text. They will have a temporary link that you can click on once and then enter your password and you reset it. Then after that the link is no longer good. In terms of security this is far superior to sending a password in plain text to your e-mail account.

The reason that you never want to have passwords sent in an e-mail is because most of the e-mail that people send these days is unencrypted. Which means that anyone can read that e-mail if they are looking at your internet traffic. All it would take would be one hacked router along the path that your e-mail takes to get your your mail server (gmail, yahoo, msn, your ISP, etc.). Then of course if you are on a wifi connection and are connecting to your e-mail over a non-secure connection (i.e. it is http: rather than https: in the url) then anyone within range of your wifi router will know your password if they are sniffing your traffic.

So the point it that this is NOT secure by any measure! The reason that I bring his up is that I continue to see sites that will send you your password in an e-mail when you indicate that you have forgotten it. Even some sites that have e-commerce, which would put your credit card information at risk (if they store that in your account) should you forget your password.

So if you are a person that has a site that sends out plain text passwords please try to change this! And for consumers, watch out for this! And for everyone, does this issue bother you or am I just being over sensitive on this? Let me know in the comments!

Mall Security on Segways

So this past weekend after leaving the theatre at the local mall, I saw a security guard patrolling around the doors on a segway! So if your a kid planning on sneaking into an R rated movie, or someone hoping to record a new movie, WATCH OUT, the security guards have segways. Actually I had to try really hard to not laugh while walking by, and was able to get the photo below while walking away. I'm not against segways, they seem like a lot of fun to use, but seeing law enforcement using this just looked ridiculous.

Well maybe this is old news for some of you, but I thought there might be some that haven't been able to see this spectacle yet! Maybe in 10 years you we will think if funny for security to not be using segways. I sure hope this isn't the case. More ridiculousness on segways for security here: Capital Segway.