Quote from: franky1 on August 10, 2013, 01:58:23 AM

Quote from: scooter on August 10, 2013, 01:07:39 AM

The problem is there is no way to build common sense into a product, service, or system.

This is why passwords are hacked so frequently. Despite all the education, people want something easy to remember. So, they choose something easy to crack.
The only way to solve the problem is to force people to choose stronger passwords, which inevitably fails.. or to completely re-think the way authentication is handled.. something a lot of people are working on.

I think it is a similar issue with bitcoin.
Despite all the info out there, people are still getting bitcoins stolen and people are still getting scammed.. sometimes even by companies or people who seemed to have an ok reputation.

Unless a technical solution is found that does not rely on trying to educate people, it will hinder widespread adoption of bitcoin.

common sense arrives when the majority know about something and know enough to make educated decisions.. computers in many of the 'silver surfer' (gran and grandpa generation) are still new.

many people will develop their own ways of making lengthy passwords.

even if it is using a parents maiden name, a date of birth and a selected word all in one. then to make it different by adding in a part of the website address or something about the website.

EG
obama8461Potusbitcointalk - used here
obama8461Potusbitcoininfosource - used here
obama8461Potusmtgox - used at mtgox
obama8461Potusmakemerich - used at mtgox

those are obviously 'unique' lengthy passwords. which even if you knew all 4 parts of the information (well the website is easy to guess Cheesy

) the order they are in makes it harder to guess on websites that only allow 3 attempts. this should be the basics of password creation for everyone, even those with memory issues

The problem is those are not as secure as you might think.
Sure, the website may block a user after 3 attempts to login, but if the site is hacked and the database is downloaded the same GPU power that is used for bitcoing mining can be used on the password hashes.
Something that I think happened here at bitcointalk once long ago. But certainly happened to numerous other bitcoin related sites.
A really good article on the topic was posted at ARS Technica earlier this year. http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/05/how-crackers-make-minced-meat-out-of-your-passwords/