Fun Stuff

Something to play with..I watched my Grandchildren this week and showed them how a simple cipher wheel works. You can down load the wheels at the following link
http://www.nsa.gov/change/index.shtml

Create Your Own Cipher Disk
A. Materials
1 Tack 1 Small Cipher Disk 1 Large Cipher Disk 1 Small Eraser Scissors
B. Directions
1. Print and cut out the two cipher disks (disks are on page 2).
2. Put the smaller disk on top of the larger disk and stick the tack thru the center of both disks.
3. Stick the sharp end of the tack into the eraser. This will prevent you from sticking yourself while turning the disks to make your
ciphers.
C. Encrypting a Code
1. Pick a letter from the smaller disk on top - this will be used as the KEY that will be shared between you and your friends to encrypt
and decrypt the message. Once you have picked a letter from the smaller disk, line it up with the “A” from the larger disk.
Example Key:
LARGE DISK: A SMALL DISK: M
KEY = A:M
2. Begin encrypting each letter of your secret message. Find the first letter of your message on the larger disk and write down the
cipher letter which appears underneath it on the smaller disk. In the example below, A=M, B=L, C=K, etc.
LARGE DISK: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
SMALL DISK: MLKJIHGFEDCBAZYXWVUTSRQPON
3. Continue finding each letter until your message has been encrypted. Once you are finished, send your friend the encrypted
message and KEY separately.
PLAINTEXT: MAKING CODES IS FUN
CIPHERTEXT: AMCEZG KYJIU EU HSZ

One More

I don't send encrypted messages, since I quit being a double-naught spy a while ago. But I don't want various accounts to be hacked... y'know, like banking stuff.

My passwords are long and I use a symbol or two. Brute-force cracking can crack my passwords, but the longer they are... like a sentence... the longer it takes. Since I type a sentence, my passwords are secure (unless I get hacked with a keylogger or on a public network.)

Here is a table on how long it takes a computer to crack a password with brute-force.

length: 4, complexity: a-z ==> less than 1 second

length: 4, complexity: a-zA-Z0-9 + symbols ==> 4.8 seconds

length: 5, complexity: a-zA-Z ==> 25 seconds

length: 6, complexity: a-zA-Z0-9 ==> 1 hour

length: 6, complexity: a-zA-Z0-9 + symbols ==> 11 hours

length: 7, complexity: a-zA-Z0-9 + symbols ==> 6 weeks

length: 8, complexity: a-zA-Z0-9 ==> 5 months

length: 8, complexity: a-zA-Z0-9 + symbols ==> 10 years

length: 9, complexity: a-zA-Z0-9 + symbols ==> 1000 years

length: 10, complexity: a-zA-Z0-9 ==> 1700 years

length: 10, complexity: a-zA-Z0-9 + symbols ==> 91800 years

I hate it when a web site says to make up a password with 6-8 characters.

Why limit password length? I like passwords that look like this:

P@55w0rds-R-H@rd-2-crack

Fun stuff, this is.

Well, it was for an NTSB intern until he got busted releasing these names of the Asiana Flight crew to the press. (Hint: not their real names.)

OMG!

He's dead!