Differences between version 4 and predecessor to the previous major change of SecurityNotes.
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| Newer page: | version 4 | Last edited on Saturday, September 14, 2002 6:48:07 pm | by JohnMcPherson | Revert |
| Older page: | version 1 | Last edited on Thursday, June 27, 2002 1:45:09 pm | by JohnMcPherson | Revert |
@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
!Passwords
Passwords are like girlfriends (or boyfriends!) - you shouldn't share them with other people, and you should get a new one every now and again.
-How to create a new
random password (tricky to remember, but safe):
- tr -dc '!-~' </dev/urandom | fold -w 8 | head -1
-A more popular method is to take the first letter of each word in a line from a song (eg 'I want to ride my bicycle' -> iwtrmb)
+
+See ChoosingPasswords for information on creating safe,
random passwords.
!Basic Machine Security:
* Don't use protocols such as telnet or ftp between machines on an untrusted network such as the internet - these send usernames and passwords around in clear text. Anonymous ftp is OK - you don't give away your details. Instead look into ssh (Secure Shell). This encrypts all data between the machines.
* Don't run unnecessary services (called "daemons" in UNIX) that allow internet connections - some distributions turn these on by default. Examples are mail or news servers and printer daemon (lpd). If you want to see a list of the daemons running on your machine, at a command prompt type:%%% netstat -aAinet%%%The lines that say "LISTEN" means a daemon is waiting for connections on the specified port.
