Yeah there’s no question: your data is not safe.
Is that really a question when companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, your bank, etc. all claim your data as their property then sell it for profit, while offering no consideration in return?
Many do sell data, actually. I just literally made a post about this, with real figures instead of numbers I’ve previously pulled out my ass. If you click my profile it should be high up there (otherwise it will be difficult for me to find it in your own instance). This is my instance’s version of the post: https://lemm.ee/post/21285233
The main source stated that the “legal” data brokerage industry, that is companies who simply buy and sell user data, was worth $319 billion in 2021.[1]
The global data broker market was valued at US$319.030 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.96% over the forecast period to reach US$545.431 billion in 2028.
Data brokers are the companies that collect the information of users through the internet legally and further, provide this data to various companies
You are right though, some companies (eg Google) simply collect user data and use it for themselves, they don’t really sell much of what they have. This means that my figure where your average user is owed $40 per year would be an underestimation, possibly a very large one.
We could maybe add the value of Google to the industry value, however even then Google’s value is offset by their various loss-leading ventures - the true value of the data Google holds is completely obscured. In any case, I need to go to bed! XD
I have worked IT for 2 Fortune 500 companies and let me tell you NONE of them took data security seriously.
Neither has 90% of any of the other sites I’ve worked on.
In my experience so few companies bother spending appropriately on it because IT is considered a cost center instead of a needed service.
Use a password manager. Every account gets a different (and strong) password.
Obviously any reputable password manager is better than none at all, but I strongly recommend using KeepassXC on the desktop and a suitable mobile client for phones and tablets, and syncing the database across devices with an encrypted peer to peer sync tool like Synching.
I’ve always been nervous about being part of a large, juicy cloud hosted target, and LastPass was the proof that those concerns are well-founded.
KeepassDX for mobile is on F-Droid and can use the same file as accessed from KeepassXC from Laptop, synced by Syncthing.
All cool and dandy, until you have to type that random 50 letter string on your TV.
Many PW managers let you generate passphrases, which are all around better than random strings. Length is the most important factor so
finance-caffeine-utopia-redress-unseen
Is way stronger and easier to remember (and type) than
Fl7$j4FWw)&5O
Is it really safer? I mean when trying to bruteforce a password, one would have to make a guess whether it’s a passphrase or not. But if you decided to check for pass phrases, wouldn’t the one you posted be cracked in 5 times the amount of words in that dictionary? I’m not sure how large the vocabularies of the generators are, but I would guess a random 17 char password might be safer than a 5 phrases password?
You don’t need to make it that long.
And also most TVs or whatever you’re streaming with has a way to type from your phone nowadays. Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV, heck I think even Xbox.
It’s kinda nice on Apple TV your phone will suggest autofill passwords for the TV, even from theirs party password managers like Bitwarden.
Android tv’s arent that old. 10 years max. 5 years since it’s affordable for most people. Is it unreasonable to own a 5 year old non-smart tv? I think not. I think it’s weird that so many people assume everyone owns a smart tv.
For symmetric keys, since they cannot be weakened using quantum computing, their strength can be assessed by their bit-equivalent amount of entropy:
- 40 bit or less - easily breakable
- 64 bit - not so easy, but doable
- 128 bit or more - basically unbreakable
Those are equivalent to, respectively:
- 0-9 - 12, 19, 38 characters
- a-z - 9, 14, 28 characters
- a-z0-9 - 8, 12, 25 characters
- A-Za-z0-9 - 7, 11, 22 characters
- A-Za-z0-9+special - 7, 10, 21 characters
Moral of the story: drop the special characters, and even the numbers… and even the uppercase. A 30+ character long all-lowercase pass phrase, is already unbreakable.
Check @falsemirror@beehaw.org:
finance-caffeine-utopia-redress
-unseen
…is already over 128 bits.
Additionally, I use simplelogin so they also gotta match unique passwords with my unique emails and then get past 2fa.
Let me tell you something about Betteridge’s law for headlines
This story is a great demonstration of my maxim that any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word “no.” The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bullshit, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it
Thank you so much for introducing me to this
Cybersecurity is expensive and doesn’t contribute directly to profits. It can prevent serious damages (legal, financial, and reputation) but that requires long-term thinking. Most executives don’t look past quarterly earnings.
On the other end, prevent malicious actors from using identity theft to get credit cards and loans: freeze your credit.
- Transunion: https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze
- Experian: https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
- Equifax: https://www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/credit-freeze/
It’ll be a minor hassle when you go to get a car loan, and forget that your credit is frozen - but you will be able to temporarily unfreeze it from your phone.
