Yahoo hack reveals most-used passwords
We reveal the most-popular passwords from the Yahoo Voice hack, the DirecTV battle gets nasty, and Facebook shows who read your group post -- sort of.
- Bridget has spent over 18 years as a consumer tech reporter, hosting daily tech news shows and writing syndicated newspaper columns. She's often a guest on national radio and television stations, including ABC, CBS, CNBC and NBC.
This Thursday, it's time to train your brain to win the gold in multitasking:
Seems to be the season for security breaches. This time, it deals with a subsection of Yahoo, called Yahoo Voices. Hackers posted more than 450,000 login names and passwords of Voices users, and it was said to be done as a wake-up call to Yahoo and others to step up security. The Voices section of Yahoo was slacking in security and did not hash passwords or require complicated strings.
CNET's Declan McCullagh wrote a program to comb through the most frequently used passwords that surfaced in the breach. The most common password was 123456. Other popular choices include the word "password" and pop-culture terms like superman, starwars and ncc1701, which is the registry of the USS Enterprise. Yeah, don't boldly go with that as your password.
The DirecTV and Viacom mess now involves everyone. It began when DirecTV stopped showing Viacom channels, like Comedy Central and MTV. DirecTV said while the negotiations continue, viewers can just go online to watch Viacom shows. To prove a point, Viacom blocked its popular shows from being viewed on Web sites. Nice how we all have to deal with that annoyance, but in the meantime you should be able to find some shows on Hulu.
Get ready for the most social Olympics yet. NBC and Adobe have created two mobile apps for Olympics content and video streams of all the competitions (which has never been done before). Plus there's a push to share everything on Facebook. Both NBC and the BBC have partnered with Facebook to track what's being said and shared online during the 17-day event. It's all part of the growing trend to get you to be engaged on two screens at once: the tv and the tablet. You will be hit with Olympics from every angle when the games begin July 27.
And while you're on Facebook, you'll notice the Events page has been redesigned to give you a calendar and list view. And Facebook is changing groups, too. You'll see the names of who has read each post made in a group. It'll mark you as having read the post if you click it, like it or... even just open the group page. Which isn't always an indicator that you've read everything on the page, but it'll assume you did. So keep that in mind, groupies.
We end with a look at Amazing Alex, a new game from the makers of Angry Birds. It's out now for Apple and Android devices, and consists of physics puzzles. Players use a series of objects that bounce and riochet to create a contraption that, in the end, triggers something to happen.
If you've be playing Amazing Alex, let me know what you think of it. Does it have what it takes to be the next Angry Birds? Send a Tout with your 15-second take on the game, or send an email.
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