GadgetByte Nepal

In this digital world, the password is the new hello. It is in the sense that we got to use passwords everywhere. Passwords are the means of securing our data and information. Passwords are something we use in our mobiles and routers to make them secure. But how strong or stupid our current passwords are, let’s find out Worst Passwords.

Worst Passwords of 2016

Before moving to the strength of one’s password, I’d like to share few of the worst passwords of 2016. They are called worst because they are the easiest one to crack and are being used the most. The worst passwords of this year aren’t much different than those of previous years. Yes, few passwords got up the list and few got down in the list. Let’s not go into actually ranking of such passwords. It’ll be easier to address them without ordering. No matter if it happens to be a No. 1 or No. 25 in the ranking, it is still the worst password and you should never use it.

Here is the list of worst Passwords of 2016:

• 123456
• password
• qwerty
• abc123
• 1234567890
• 9876543210
• qwertyuiop
• 1qaz2wsx
• welcome
• monkey
• football
• baseball
• letmein
• login
• princess
• master
• 123123
• 111111
• passw0rd
• starwars

Well, there are still many to this list. By now, you must have got an overview. So don’t use generic words and numbers as your password. Plus, the sequential ordering of numbers and letters is the worst password one can come up with.

Tips for generating strong passwords?

Yes, there are few website and apps that claim to generate strongest of a password for you. But I recommend you not to use one. Not because they are not safe or secure. But passwords generated that way will be something hard for you to remember. So, the best would be generating the password on your own. By keeping few things in mind one can come up with a strong password possible.

1. It’s always better to use longer passwords.
2. It’s never recommended to use a phrase as a password by omitting spaces. E.g. Do not use something like “SheIsMine”
3. It’s wiser to use unrelated words while keeping them in the password. E.g. Do not use related groups of words like “WaterDrinksIce” rather prefer something like “BirdsBikeDesertHoliday”
4. Use UpperCases, LowerCases, Special Characters, Numbers but not in a generic way like it’s not wiser to use two or three consecutive numbers at the end. Rather, put them somewhere in the middle and not in a consecutive way. E.g. “LetsGoShopping99” isn’t as strong as “Let$7G0$hopping9”
5. Do not use same passwords on different platforms. I repeat, do not use same passwords for different websites. If someone cracks your password for one site, all your digital world will be at stake.

This isn’t a hard and fast rule you must follow. It is something in my opinion and experience that I find handy to generate a stronger password. Lastly, you can check how strong your password is, by testing in the websites like PasswordMeter. That said, no password is 100% strong and secure.

With the advancement of technology, security features in everything have got more reliable and secure. At least, that is what we believe. After the use of fingerprints, we believe ID theft will be something we’ll be hearing the least. Since everyone’s fingerprint is a unique one. That’s why people prefer fingerprints to pin codes and passwords. Even in movies, people clone fingerprints from a physical surface. Abstracting fingerprint data from a digital source wasn’t considered as an option. But, one recent Japanese research claims replicating one’s fingerprint needs nothing but a digital Photograph.

Photographs have become a new cool these days. Every day, there’s a flood of photographs in social medias. But the next time you click a photo, it is rather wiser to not flash your fingers in it. Posing for a picture while holding your hands up in a peace sign could pose a security threat, with hackers able to recreate prints that are the key to phones, computers, and tablets.

Researchers at Japan’s National Institute of Informatics (NII) have successfully regenerated one’s fingerprint with the help of a photograph taken from up to 3 meters away. Well, not all the photographs will give the best results. The conditions for successful cloning of fingerprint were, the photograph needs to be a high res one and it has to be taken in a well-lit environment.

It’s not the first time that one’s fingerprint data has been abstracted from a photo. More than 2 years ago, a group of hackers did the same thing. They claimed to have recreated German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen’s fingerprint by using a picture of her thumb taken at a press conference.

Remedy to not let others replicate your fingerprint from a photo:

Coming to the remedies, they might sound funny but they are the fact. Many high profile people, at a risk of biometric ID being stolen, wear gloves. It is wiser to not pose the two-finger peace sign while taking photos today onwards. Plus, these Japanese researchers told about a remedy as well. That is a biometric jammer. It is a transparent film containing titanium oxide that can be attached to fingers to hide their prints. However, such attachment of film won’t stop your fingerprint from working. Unfortunately, this biometric jammer won’t be available commercially for at least two more years.

Last year, Samsung Galaxy Note 7 made headlines for all the wrong reasons. The device’s battery was on fire – literally. While Samsung hasn’t released its investigation report on why the battery exploded, it is believed to have happened due to the battery’s size and manufacturing issues.

Samsung used lithium-Ion battery for the Galaxy Note 7. And one of the major problems with li-ion battery is that it tends to explode if heated. We have seen many devices catch fire due to this problem.

Read More: Samsung knows why the Galaxy Note 7 exploded

Read More: Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fire fiasco

A Li-Ion battery consists of two types of electrodes, a positive one, and a negative one. The charged particles from one electrode are sent to another electrode via an electrolyte. And issues like short-circuiting or overcharging can create heat that can go up to 150°C. This results in electrolyte catching fire that in turn creates an explosion.

So, to solve this issue, researchers from Stanford University, USA, have designed lithium-ion batteries that feature a built-in fire extinguisher to prevent the battery from catching fire. They simply added a compound called triphenyl phosphate (TPP), a component used as a flame retardant in different electronic devices.

So what exactly can TPP do in a lithium-ion battery? When the electrolyte’s temperature reaches 150°C, a plastic fiber separating the electrolyte and TPP melts, releasing the chemical that in turn puts out the flame that has generated.

Since the chemical has a capacity to affect any device’s performance when it comes in contact with the electrolyte, the researcher used the plastic fiber separator.

Yi Cui, the project’s lead scientist, said, “Using our ‘smart’ separators, battery electrochemical performance will not be affected by the flame retardant under normal conditions. However, once there is a potential thermal runaway, the flame retardant will be activated and nip the fire or explosion in the bud.”

The researchers have claimed that the fire retardant can stop the electrolyte from burning up in just 0.4 seconds.