IT Компромат - правда о HiTech

I S THERE anybody else out there who uses a super-complicated, hack-proof password to gain access to their home computer? And who diligently changes it every few months? As though it were a ritual as important in life as flossing or oiling the axle on the wheelie bin? Or am I the only certified paranoid basket case in this city?

The nightmare scenario looping in my head is that if somebody breaks into my house the first thing they'll go for won't be the Blu-ray player or the plasma screen or my scrupulously catalogued collection of Asian Nudist Health Farm Quarterly . It'll be to get into my computer and do terrible things, such as tell everybody what's on my screensaver. (For the record, it's an artist's impression of a Care Bear giving "the business" to a Cabbage Patch doll. Now leave me alone.)

Having to cope with one or two passwords is fine, and a small price to pay for being part of the digital age. Even three or four is OK. Or five. But with all the emailing, banking, shopping, bidding, flight booking, bill paying, sharemarket monitoring and international espionage the average person gets up to, there is a password critical mass beyond which you start drooling uncontrollably.

As with many people, password security was something I didn't always take seriously. Then we all discovered, courtesy of Die Hard , how easily billions of dollars could disappear from bank accounts with just a few keystrokes.

After that we all began living in fear of going to an ATM and finding our funds had vanished, and ringing the bank to raise the alarm only to be told: "Sorry, we have no record of who you are. Thank you for calling. Clunk."

Then came this thing called "phishing", which I thought was just like regular fishing, but done with somebody who wasn't very good at spelling. "Phishing" is when an internet scam artist pretends to be from a bank and gets people to give them all their account and password details on the pretext of an urgent security alert.   Continued...