PASSWORD Security

Discuss technical problems and features here
mcthulhu
Orange Belt
Posts: 228
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2017 4:01 pm
Languages: English (native); strong reading skills - Russian, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Slovene, Farsi; fair reading skills - Polish, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Portuguese; beginner/rusty - Swedish, Norwegian, Danish
x 590

Re: PASSWORD Security

Postby mcthulhu » Mon Jul 24, 2017 9:14 pm

I had changed my password yesterday per rdearman's suggestion, and logged in again to test it with no problems. I just had another problem with logging in today, however, and I had to answer the CAPTCHA.
0 x

User avatar
Xenops
Brown Belt
Posts: 1444
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 10:33 pm
Location: Boston
Languages: English (N), Danish (A2), Japanese (rusty), Nansha (constructing)
On break: Japanese (approx. N4), Norwegian (A2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16797
x 3559
Contact:

Re: PASSWORD Security

Postby Xenops » Mon Jul 24, 2017 9:39 pm

After some confusion and with CAPTCHA, I know have a new password and I can log in. Mods, you may disregard my email. :) Thank you for your work.
0 x
Check out my comic at: https://atannan.com/

User avatar
MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2114
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
x 4823

Re: PASSWORD Security

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon Jul 24, 2017 11:27 pm

Iversen wrote:Those of us who are moderators in both places can block your HTLAL account, but then you can't use the search facilites or the list over the latest messages (though that list has become somewhat of joke lately). Besides your name would still figure on the user list, and we can't remove it from there.
If the user list still shows the name, there is no point in blocking my account. So don't bother. If I am not mistaken, searching can still be done through Google (website:how-to-learn-any-language.com etc.). Thanks to both you and Rhian for your replies.
1 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

User avatar
Hank
Green Belt
Posts: 325
Joined: Wed Dec 16, 2015 12:35 pm
Location: Missouri, USA
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), Welsh (studying)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1833
x 562

Re: PASSWORD Security

Postby Hank » Mon Jul 31, 2017 2:25 am

Old news maybe, but this just happened to me. I changed my password. It really stinks because my password was easy to remember, but not very safe. :(
0 x
Future travel plans:
2020: Cruise to Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos, Bahamas

Tillumadoguenirurm
Orange Belt
Posts: 193
Joined: Fri May 06, 2016 3:07 pm
Languages: English
x 235

Re: PASSWORD Security

Postby Tillumadoguenirurm » Mon Jul 31, 2017 7:49 am

Hank wrote:Old news maybe, but this just happened to me. I changed my password. It really stinks because my password was easy to remember, but not very safe. :(


And I got the captcha again today, but I've only tried to logg in once.
0 x

Cainntear
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3468
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
Location: Scotland
Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc
x 8661
Contact:

Re: PASSWORD Security

Postby Cainntear » Mon Jul 31, 2017 11:10 am

Presumably this is them attempting to use the data from the recent hack...?

It's happened to me several times recently, and the most recent was five minutes ago. I logged in with my password yesterday too, so it looks like the hackers attempted overnight.

As for password security settings, four unrelated words from four unrelated languages make for a surprisingly secure password, and you can even add in a few extra characters to mix things up.
4 x

User avatar
Iversen
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 7:36 pm
Location: Denmark
Languages: Monolingual travels in Danish, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian and (part time) Esperanto
Ahem, not yet: Norwegian, Afrikaans, Platt, Scots, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Irish, Indonesian and a few more...
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1027
x 14962

Re: PASSWORD Security

Postby Iversen » Mon Jul 31, 2017 12:25 pm

It is necessary to have good strong passwords, but actually there is no reason to believe that they have been guessed so far (and therefore no reason to change a good strong password). The point is at the fake login attempts fizzle out when the limit is reached, and to go beyond this point you have to supply the correct password AND solve a riddle - in other words the riddle isn't used unless you also have supply a correct password. When the rightful account owner has passed this double test and got access to the forum the counter is of course reset and the hacker can then attempt a new series of guesses - but with a good password you would need an astronomical number of rounds before finding the right one purely by guessing. Maybe the goal of the attacker right now simply is to irritate us.
3 x

William Camden
Green Belt
Posts: 384
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2015 2:47 am
Location: Greenwich Mean Time zone
Languages: English (N), German (fluent), Turkish (fluent), Russian (fluent), French (semi-fluent), Spanish (semi-fluent), am studying Polish, have some knowledge of it, also studying modern Greek, basic knowledge of Arabic (mostly MSA, some exposure to colloquial dialects), basic knowledge of Latin and Italian, beginner in Scottish Gaelic.
x 476

Re: PASSWORD Security

Postby William Camden » Tue Aug 01, 2017 8:10 am

I keep getting "the number of tries has been exceeded" -type messages, after just trying to log in once, and I get the CAPTCHA. I may change my password.
0 x
: 4321 / 4321Greek Memrise

User avatar
Adrianslont
Blue Belt
Posts: 827
Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2015 10:39 am
Location: Australia
Languages: English (N), Learning Indonesian and French
x 1936

Re: PASSWORD Security

Postby Adrianslont » Tue Aug 01, 2017 9:37 am

Iversen wrote:Maybe the goal of the attacker right now simply is to irritate us.


Or maybe they are hoping to find one of us has used a password such as "password" or "12345678" and steal an identity. And find a bank account attached to that identity.

Or maybe a bored, clueless person who has no real objective.

I'd love to hear the theories of the computer boffins on the forum who know more than me!
1 x

User avatar
Elenia
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1888
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 1:22 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), Swedish (C1), French (Massively Atrophied) German (lowly beginner, somehow learnt to read)


Finnish?!
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=708
x 3280
Contact:

Re: PASSWORD Security

Postby Elenia » Tue Aug 01, 2017 1:20 pm

I didn't bother changing my password. It's not particularly easy to guess, I don't think, and it's not the same as my password for anything else. It's automatically saved in my browser, so I only had the CAPTCHA problem when trying to log in from my phone - which I only tried to see if I would have that problem.
1 x


Return to “Technical Support and Feature Requests”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests