password

It's time to pony up for prepaid iPhones, avoid password scams and drop that mayor obsession:

The iPhone is coming to Virgin Mobile at the end of June. But you'll have to drop a hefty $650 to get the iPhone 4S, since there's no two-year contract. Plans start at $30 a month. It's cheaper in the long run to go prepaid with this plan instead of spending $200 upfront and paying for a more expensive monthly bill for two years (but you'll be limited with talk minutes). Virgin is on the Sprint network.

If Android … Read more

The dating Web site eHarmony got hit by the same group that released a list of LinkedIn member passwords yesterday, so be sure to change your passwords for both if you have accounts.

Buzzfeed also parsed through the list of leaked passwords to reveal some pretty depressing sentiments from employees. While many accounts used overly simplistic passwords like "LinkedIn" or "password1," some of the more disturbing pass phrases include things like "suicide," "solonely," "iwishiwasdead," and "divorce." They're still not very strong in terms of security, so be sure to add a special character or a number during the bleak changeover.… Read more

Last.fm today urged its users to change their passwords because of a compromise that may be related to a huge password leak involving LinkedIn and eHarmony.

"We are currently investigating the leak of some Last.fm user passwords. This follows recent password leaks on other sites, as well as information posted online," a Last.fm blog post said. "As a precautionary measure, we're asking all our users to change their passwords immediately."

The blog post did not say how many users were affected or how the passwords were leaked. A Last.fm executive did … Read more

The years change, but the stories remain the same. Passwords are a crappy defense and most of us use poor ones in exchange for ease of use.

Scads of LinkedIn users have had their passwords stolen. Phishing attacks ensued to prey on LinkedIn users. Now eHarmony has had issues. Passwords are regularly swiped from Web mail accounts.

The problem: Passwords may be the most imperfect security measure around. Most users don't want to sacrifice usability for a good password.

Sure, there are encryption techniques, two-factor authentication and other enhanced security measures. The reality is that most of us stick … Read more

Dating site eHarmony confirmed today that passwords used by its members were compromised following reports of references to the site among allegedly stolen passwords that were posted to a hacker site.

"After investigating reports of compromised passwords, we have found that a small fraction of our user base has been affected. We are continuing to investigate but would like to provide the following actions we are taking to protect our members," Becky Teraoka, spokeswoman for eHarmony, wrote in a blog post. "As a precaution, we have reset affected members passwords. Those members will receive an email with … Read more

Earlier today rumors started sweeping across the Internet that LinkedIn account passwords had been leaked online. A few hours later, LinkedIn confirmed that the rumors were true; millions of account passwords had been compromised and posted online.

Almost just as fast as the story started spreading, a link to LeakedIn.org was being passed around as a way to check if your password was leaked in the security breach. To figure out if you're affected, LeakedIn requires you to enter your account password. Your password is then converted to its SHA-1 equivalent and then is compared to the list … Read more

In today's show we're changing our passwords, talking to strangers and pretending we can fly:

Google Maps are going 3D. Google announced new features it's building into maps, and it gives the perspective of what you might see if you could fly between buildings. Multiple photos are taken by airplanes, and then it's automatically stitched together to look like a 3D model. The demo was of San Francisco, but no word on which other cities will be the first to get this feature. It is expected to cover 300 million people by the end of the … Read more

LinkedIn said today that some passwords on a list of allegedly stolen hashed passwords belong to its members, but did not say how its site was compromised.

"We can confirm that some of the passwords that were compromised correspond to LinkedIn accounts," Vicente Silveira, a director at the professional social-networking site, wrote in a blog post. It is unknown how many passwords have been verified by LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has disabled the passwords on those accounts, it said. Account holders will receive an e-mail from LinkedIn with instructions for resetting their passwords. The e-mails will not include any links. … Read more

The time has come for every Internet denizen to take a stand against the worst atrocity (and probably the biggest problem) on the Web: vertical videos. Big thanks to the puppets in this PSA spreading the word about Vertical Video Syndrome.

You can blame Flip video cameras, the ubiquity of videos shot with an iPhone, or just the tech-ignorance masses, but it has to stop. With the help of Ariel, Richard, and Joseph on today's episode, we all hope to put an end to the vertical video travesty.… Read more