Microsoft Suggests New Approach for Users to Manage Web Passwords

'Cuda' said it all. This is mind-numbing insight.

Off at a tangent (may as well, the post is pointless), how do individual members devise passwords ?

For numerics, I like memorable dates/times - reversed in order to avoid obvious '19' as initial digits. As an instance, I know the exact time of day my son was born. One that I've heard but never used is to use the first letters of each word in a song. ywwaawiacb. Shaddup all you Human League fans .

It's a bit harder to incorporate those silly symbols when you hit 'shift', but not impossible.

More interesting is how often, and if, one should change a password. I've worked in a few places where doing so was essential - the system would force you to do so. All sorts of words (to be found in any dictionary) would be rejected. Being the sort of dork who walks around memorizing random numbers, that doesn't bother me (Yeah, I'm showing off). The only interesting point here is in strategy, and just how much people actually practice password protection.

Whenever I raid CR4, I just tap in 'Password', then 'Admin'.Sorry, it's a bit early for seeing if anyone falls for that.

This is as brilliant as their operating systems. And as well thought out.

Advice from the same company who

• helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;

• has given the NSA pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;

• worked with the FBI to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;

• worked with the FBI's Data Intercept Unit to "understand" potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;

• in July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, helped the NSA to such an extent that the NSA boasted it had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism.

Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a "team sport".

Thanks, Microsoft, may you burn in Hell.

I'll light the fire, if Bill's there!

I'd rather have a fingerprint scanner. I'm sick of dragging my book out to look up passwords.