20 Passwords that you don't want to use

Every website that you register an email or create an account in, you usually, or always need a password. Long ago, it wasn't such a problem but nowadays, with the Internet being a huge part of the economy, hackers have become famous and have taken hacking to a whole new level. Even with this, people still decide to use passwords that are insecure and easy to guess. These are the top 20 passwords that you don't want to use:

- 123456
- 12345
- 123456789
- Password
- iloveyou
- princess
- rockyou
- 1234567
- 12345678
- abc123
- Nicole
- Daniel
- babygirl
- monkey
- Jessica
- Lovely
- michael
- Ashley
- 654321
- Qwerty
- infographic

These passwords that I listed have become very unsafe to use and are easy to guess, even you may think that passwords like "654321" or "infographic" are not common passwords. The best way to prevent this, obviously, is to build a stronger password. One may think that certain accounts are not that important but bank accounts also have a password!

Main points:
- Passwords are very weak
- Passwords must be strong in order to prevent hacking
- Passwords can store lots of private information that hackers can obtain'

The picture below can help you prevent hacking. It also shows statistics of passwords being used nowadays.

So to create a strong password, it must not be simple. It must be creative, contain capital letters, numbers, and even punctuation such as the exclamation mark.

Potential Strengths:

- The author shows that passwords are weak and by raising awareness like this, it will help a lot.
- It might help people to start creating passwords that are secure and actually take care of their accounts.
- It might save them from the future (example: they could create a Paypal account online and create a weak password).

Disadvantages:

- It might cause a psychological stress. Even if it may be more secure, it may worry people too much.
- People might be worried and create a password that is too tough to remember and they end up forgetting it.

Questions:

Why won't many websites just prevent or disallow passwords that are easy to guess? How else can a password be safe and private? Is there any way to make things safer just in case? Those are some questions that I ask myself.

"Top 20 Worst Passwords That Can Hack Your Private Accounts?" Allinfographics.org. AllInfographics, n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2013. <http://allinfographics.org/top-20-worst-passwords-that-can-hack-your-private-accounts/>.

Ancient Martian Lake discovered!

Ever since we discovered about space, many questions started coming into people's mind. Are there any other life forms out there? How big is the universe? Are there any other "rocks" just like the moon? Many of these unanswered questions are were asked. One question was regarding if there was life on Mars. Out of curiosity, NASA sent the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to take picture of Mars. Recently, a crater was spotted by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM). Apparently, it seems that there was water on the Martian planet. Today, the water may have been all dried up or sunk deep inside a crater (McLaughlin Crater) where they spotted this. Wherever there is water, there is hydrogen and oxygen, meaning there will be life too. This has raised lots of questions and keeps astronomists wondering. Scientists believe there was life on Earth about 100 million years ago. 

The author says the following important things:

- There may have been life on the surface of the Martian planet

- There is a volcanic crater

- They believe the surface of Mars was formed due to water, not just meteors

- The surface of Mars is shaped similar to flowing water in a lake

Potential Strength/Advantage:

- If there truly was life on Mars, that would give us proof that there are other life forms out there
- It would increase our knowledge about planets and would lead us to bigger explorations
- It would mean that there would be other planets like Mars, meaning humans, with the require and correct technology, can find another planet like what Mars was a 100 million years ago.

Weakness/Disadvantage:

- People might panic about the fact that there are other life forms out there
- It may have been another factor that Mars is shaped like that on the surface
- If we have the wrong facts, then we will only be leading ourselves to wrong conclusions. If it was not water, then the fact that other life forms do exist, is still a refutable theory.

Questions:

Are other life forms actually truly out there? What will happen if we figure out other life forms do exist and once inhabited Mars? Will humans find another planet like Earth and Mars a 100 million years ago? Will the world panic if they know aliens do exist?Will there be more scientific discoveries and explorations? There's just so much questions to ask.




Knapp, Alex. "NASA Finds Remains Of Ancient Martian Lake." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 21 Jan. 2013. Web. 22 Jan. 2013.

Anonymous' Message to President Obama

A group of hacker or activists that go by the name of "Anonymous" has hacked military and government websites. They used a method called "DDoS" which means "Distributed denial of service". It is a form of hack to most people and what DDoSing does is it floods a website with millions of requests. Then the website is flooded with too much requests, thus shutting down the website, sometimes leaking information. Anonymous has warned the U.S. government and has told them to release all prisoners who were imprisoned for DDoSing. Anonymous does not consider DDoSing as an act of crime.

- A group of activists named "Anonymous" has petitioned against the White House
- Anonymous is warning the U.S. government to do what they ask for
- Many people consider "DDoSing" an illegal thing to do and a "civil disobedience"
- If the U.S. government ignores this warning, then the Anonymous will hack the President's website and the military website, leaking private information.
- More than 2700 people were put in jail cause they DDoSed and now the Anonymous want them out

Strengths:  I think this is a good thing in one way because in today's world, the government is very corrupt. With a corrupt government like this, a group of people have actually stood up to take action against the government. 

Weaknesses - I think one bad thing about this whole situation is that "DDoSing" is actually a wrong thing to do in my opinion, especially when done on purpose. People have the rights to own their website and to shut it down to get what you want is pretty much going against someone's rights. 

Will the government follow what they say and release all the prisoners? What will happen once those people are released from jail? Is the Anonymous really that powerful to hack military websites and the website of the President of the U.S?

This is a video where the Anonymous give a message to the people of America.

Jauregui, Andres. "Anonymous DDoS Petition: Group Calls On White House To Recognize Direct Denial Of Service As Protest." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 12 Jan. 2013. Web. 14 Jan. 2013.