a monochromatic oeuvre

Cardinary Sins of Passwords

• Using short passwords with few numbers or special characters.
• Using the same password for many things (or everything).
• Rarely (or never) changing passwords.
• Using a name or common phrase in a password.

If you’re guilty of one or more of these bad password habits, raise your hand!

*Raises hand*

Despite being (I think) very tech savvy, I have some very bad password habits, and I would not be at all surprised if many of my similarly computer-smart friends do too. Mostly, I use the same password for many things, and I rarely change my passwords.  The password I use most often, for almost all of my accounts on various websites, I first used with my first email account so long ago in the mid 90s. It is a relatively short and simple password, and someone could definitely wreak some havoc if they got their hands on it, though they wouldn’t have access to anything important. Of my other passwords, the newest one is about 3 years old and I came up with the oldest one almost 7 years ago. That’s plenty of time for someone to get their hands on the keys to my personal information, bank accounts, etc.

One of my new years resolutions this year was to improve on my password habits, and I definitely haven’t gotten anywhere with that. (Another one was to blog more, heh, fail there too.) So I guess the question is, why is it so hard to keep passwords up to date and secure?

For me, the number one barrier to changing passwords regularly is the hassle of having to memorize a new password, especially a complex one with numbers and special characters. Similarly, I reuse the 3 or 4 passwords I use most often to minimize the risk of forgetting a password.  With so many different services which require passwords, and more every week as I sign up for a new web site, it is sometimes difficult to remember whether I have an account to a certain site, much less remember a unique password for each one. Furthermore, I’ve never had any problems with security, so I don’t have any real motivation to change them.

Possible solutions

Using a password manager: I got a free license for 1password during MacHeist’s Giving Tree this year, which I’m going to start using. This allows me to use more passwords of greater complexity, and not have to worry about forgetting them. Of course, this is only as secure as the master password I use for 1password, and I have to figure something out for when I am on a public computer. If I don’t actually remember my passwords, I won’t be able to get to my accounts away from my computer.
Using phrase passwords: Instead of the traditional 8-12 character random passwords, use a 20-30 character phrase that is easy to memorize but difficult to guess. To help mitigate the risk of getting locked out of my accounts if I lose access to my password manager somehow, I think I will start using phrases from songs or quotes or something as passwords, instead. Unfortunately, the longer a phrase is, the greater a chance for a typo while typing it in.
Using a password generation system: Another option which might be safer than phrase passwords is using a system to generate secure passwords that are unique for every site. One such system is this one suggested by Lifehacker.

I’m starting to migrate towards these practices right now. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep it up and maintain my good luck with regard to password security for a while longer.

I don’t update very much, do I?

Blogs are hard. Oh well. Halloween happened! Here is a picture of me and Dana.

Stick figure ♥.

So I arrived at school expecting to set up my room in about the same way as I had the year before. My roommate and I would have our beds set up in a Captain’s bed style on opposite sides of the room along the shorter wall, with our desks along the longer wall and the refridgerator and microwave in the middle of the longer wall between ours desks.

As I walked into my room on the first day, my first thought was that it felt somewhat smaller than it should have been. I soon discovered that this was because it actually was smaller, as the school had, without informing us, shortened the shorter wall by about 6 inches, supposedly to earthquake-proof the dormitory.

These are pictures of my suitemates’ room, which is set up like I was going to.

The bed is set up in a Captain's style, with the drawers and bookshelf underneath.

The two desks are along the longer wall, with the fridge between the desks.

As a result of these changes, one of the beds no longer fit along the shorter wall (the side with the door), and nothing worked anymore! All my plans had been ruined! After a quick scramble to find an acceptable room design, we decided upon this design (I would try to describe it but pictures would work better I think):

The two beds are lofted and closer together. Mine is along the far side of the room, and Patrick's is in the middle of the room.

The desks and drawers are under the beds, with our work areas in the room between the beds.

A lounge area is set up with a sofa, bean bag sofa, fridge, TV, and video games.

To achieve this setup, I just bought the sofa, and had the bean bag sofa donated to me from my friend. The leather sofa chair I used to have is now in the courtyard outside my room. The only drawback is that our beds are now lofted and relatively close to each other, instead of on opposite sides of the room. This hangout area is pretty sweet though. Fair trade.

Who are you?

I’m Marquis Wang.  I go to school at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, where I am planning on majoring in Computer Science.  I grew up in Champaign, IL, attending the University of Illinois Laboratory High School, which I graduated from in 2007.

I like to keep busy with various programming projects, which range from designing and maintaining my personal web sites to writing small programs or games.  I will keep some of the more complete ones in my sandbox.

Otherwise, my interests vary from moment to moment.  I enjoy playing chess, going hiking, reading books, and going on adventures.

As a student, my employment status changes from year to year, but in the past 3 years, I have been a sysadmin for the University of Illinois’s Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group, a student webmaster for Harvey Mudd College, and I am currently working as a programmer for the Cognitive Computation Group, once again at the University of Illinois.

Why do you blog?

I’m starting this blog as a record of the things that I’m interested in – things that I am working on or thinking about.  I can research things that I find interesting, then document my findings on this blog, so that I can refer back to it as necessary.  At the same time, other people can benefit from the same information, and hopefully give some feedback so I’m not working in a black hole.  Some people say that isolation is the best environment for creativity, but I find that it is far too easy to find yourself in a rut unless you have some outside input.

What exactly is a monochromatic oeuvre?

Monochromatic: (adj) Containing or using only one color; monotonous or lacking in variety
Oeuvre: (noun) The works of a painter, composer, or author regarded collectively; a work of art, music, or literature

Therefore, a monochromatic oeuvre is a collection of art of all one color or type.  Hopefully, the contents of this blog will be at least slightly polychromatic.  The title is a tribute to one of the best comic strips of the last two decades, Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes.  I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to find the exact strip in question.

How can I contact you?

marquis@marquiswang.com