Younger people lax on password choice: study

7 hrs.

Devin Coldewey , NBC News

A recent poll suggests that while many people are learning to use "strong" passwords online, younger people are less likely than their parents to do so.

The poll was conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of ESET, a security software company. When respondents were asked whether they used"a combination of numbers, letters and symbols"?in their passwords, a?surprising?84 percent?responded "yes."

That may come as a surprise to many, given the generally low quality of passwords evident whenever a large cache of them is leaked. Thousands of Yahoo! passwords were leaked a few months ago, and a huge number of them were simply "password," "123456," or something similarly insecure.

People have apparently learned their lesson, according to the study, though more stringent requirements when choosing a password may also deserve some credit. But interestingly, the lowest-scoring group wasn't, as some might expect, seniors, but rather those ages 18 to 34. Yes, students and young folks of all stripes appear to be rather more cavalier about their security.

In fact, compared with people 55 and older, younger people were less likely to use a complex password, multiple passwords?or have different PINs for different devices and services.

The reasons for this weren't explored by the survey, but people?ages 18 to?34 are more likely to be using and logging into dozens of sites rather than just two or three, which could?lead to a greater tendency to repeat passwords.?Stephen Cobb, ESET's Security Evangelist and author of the post describing the survey results, agreed that there could be some behavior like this that's leading to lackluster security measures.

Younger people do excel in another area, though: using a password manager. Those ages?18 to?34?were much more likely to use an application to store and manage their passwords, or to use a Web?browser's built-in capabilities to that effect. Men especially (twice as many as women) stored their passwords in their browsers.

More statistics and analysis can be found at ESET's blog post on the poll.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC?News Digital. His personal website is?coldewey.cc.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/younger-people-lax-password-choice-study-1C6554820

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Copano Energy prices offering of 6M units

HOUSTON (AP) ? Copano Energy priced a public offering of 6 million common units at $32.13 apiece.

The natural gas company plans to use the offering's net proceeds to pay back part of the outstanding debt under its revolving credit facility. It anticipates using the extra borrowing capacity as needed for capital projects, acquisitions, hedging, working capital and general corporate purposes.

Copano Energy LLC said Friday that it is giving the underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to an additional 900,000 units.

The offering is expected to close on Wednesday.

Shares of Houston-based Copano Energy LLC dropped $1.28, or 3.8 percent, to $32.08 in morning trading. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $24.24 to $38.03.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/copano-energy-prices-offering-6m-units-143515855--finance.html

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GOP registration worker charged with voter fraud

By Michael Isikoff, NBC News

A campaign worker linked to a controversial Republican consulting firm has been arrested in Virginia and charged with throwing?voter registration forms into a dumpster.

The suspect, Colin Small, 31, was described by a local law enforcement official as a "supervisor" in a Republican Party financed operation to register voters in Rockingham County in rural Virginia, a key swing state in the Nov. 6 election. He was arrested after a local business owner in the same Harrisonburg, Va., shopping center where the local GOP campaign headquarters is located spotted Small tossing a bag into the trash, according to a statement Thursday by the Rockingham County Sheriff?s office. The bag was later found to contain eight voter registration forms, it said.? The arrest was reported Thursday night by WWBT-TV in Richmond.

The case comes on the heels of a controversy last month over the activities of Strategic Allied Consulting, an Arizona based consulting firm that was paid $3 million by the Republican National Committee this year to register voters in five battleground states, including Virginia. The firm, run by veteran GOP operative Nathan Sproul, was recently fired by the RNC following reports that its workers had submitted hundreds of suspicious voter registration forms in Florida.

Related:?RNC cuts ties with firm over voter fraud allegations

Sean Spicer, communications director for the RNC, told NBC News Thursday night that Small has now been fired as well, and that he had been directly employed by a payroll company called Pinpoint, which was previously used by Strategic Allied Consulting to pay workers for the GOP registration drive being run by the consulting company.

Small lists? himself on his LinkedIn resume as a? ?Grassroots field director at Republican National Committee? from August 2012 to the present. But Spicer denied that Small was ever directly employed by the RNC and said he will be??told to take that down.? Small was reportedly in jail Thursday night and could not be reached for comment.

Strategic Allied Consulting also tried to distance itself from the arrested campaign worker. ?The relationship between Strategic Allied and Colin Small ended on September 27th, when our firm stopped running voter registration programs in Virginia and other states. We had no contact with Small or any other voter registration worker at any point thereafter,? a spokesman for the firm said in a statement emailed to NBC News. ?The reprehensible conduct it appears Small engaged in happened nearly three weeks later. Strategic Allied had nothing to do with such regrettable, illegal activity. We hope he is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.?

Spicer, the spokesman for the RNC, said that after the RNC and the Republican Party of Virginia severed their relationships with Strategic Allied Consulting, the state party?continued to use some of the firm's same workers, including Small, by paying them through Pinpoint.?

The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd talks to NBC's Michael Isikoff about Florida voting fraud and what's being done about it now.

?The actions taken by this individual are a direct contradiction of both his training and explicit instructions given to him,? said Pat Mullins, the chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, in a statement Thursday night. ?The Republican Party of Virginia will not tolerate any action by any person that could threaten the integrity of our electoral process."

The Rockingham County Sheriff?s office said that, after an investigation and "lengthy" consultations with local prosecutors, Small was arrested and charged with eight felony counts and four misdemeanors under Virginia voter fraud laws and one misdemeanor count of obstruction of justice. ?There is no indication that this activity was widespread in our jurisdiction; it appears to be very limited in nature but there is the possibility that additional charges may be filed in the future if it is deemed appropriate,? said the statement from Rockingham County Sheriff Bryan Hutcheson.

?It is not clear what motive Small might have had for throwing away the registration forms. Voters in Virginia do not register by party so there is no way to know whether the recovered registration forms were from Democratic or Republican voters. One GOP source said that a campaign worker could be tempted to throw away forms that have incomplete information since there are penalties under Virginia law for not submitting completed registration forms within 15 days after they are signed. It could not be determined Thursday night if the forms allegedly tossed by Small were incomplete.

Sproul?s companies have been accused by Democrats in the past of engaging in tactics aimed at suppressing voter turnout, including throwing away Democratic registration forms.? Sproul has denied any wrongdoing and no charges against his companies have been filed. But authorities in Florida said they are conducting a statewide investigation of Strategic Allied?s operations there following reports of suspicious registration forms submitted by its workers, including forms with phony addresses and similar looking signatures. Sproul blamed the suspicious forms on a few ?bad apples? who were working for him.

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Source: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/19/14556980-gop-registration-worker-charged-with-voter-fraud?lite

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A WORK AT HOME MUM?MINUS THE KIDS - The Modern ...

Posted by MWSG Admin on Thursday, October 18, 2012 ? Leave a Comment?

Looking into my crystal ball I can see the future I want to have.

I want a nice home and a happy, healthy family and the luxury to be able to contribute to our lifestyle while working at home and raising our children.

When these topics come up in general conversation, I usually get the standard nod from all my friends whom themselves, would also love to be working from home in some way when children come along.

But when I dare to say that I would like this to be my lifestyle now, without the 2.5 children in tow I am usually greeted with a stampede of ?Why now? You?re still able to go to work!? and ?But you don?t have any kids!?

The truth of the matter is I love being at home. I am truly the person I want to be when I am there. It?s inviting, there?s never anyone drinking the last pot of coffee and, what?s more, track pants and messy buns are ok for the Monday morning meeting at home.

After a few long-haul travel adventures, and actually realising that I can make the world as small or as large as I want it to be, the answer is clear. I can finally see the trees through all the forest.

The internet and social media are increasingly making the lattes in Manhattan and the brunches in Dubai easier to experience. And, let?s face it, no one is forking out $1500 to fly to New York just for a coffee.

But with the click of a button and a swoosh of a mouse I am simply transported to a world where as long as I have my wits about me and comfy pants on, I can be earning the same, if not more, from the comfort of my home, with re-runs of Friends playing in the background. It may not start out as the money spinner all those pop up ads promise, and the Carrie Bradshaw life of typing articles and looking at the topless muscular men in Central Park running around definitely won?t be happening in the small town in NSW where I am from.

But who?s to say I need kids for it to be acceptable to work at home? I have a fairly reliant dog that I treat like a child, and I don?t feel the need anymore to defend my desire to be a successful businesswoman of the world, from my living room.

Imagine it. You wake up in the morning, help the hubby get ready for work, send him on his way, and then you can really start the day.

I would like to begin with some air guitar while doing some light cleaning, with a vocal solo to bring crowds to their knees. Followed by a quick workout and some yoga to freshen the mind and body, then hopping into the shower where yet another vocal solo rings through the acoustics of the bathroom.

Dressed in my finest sweats and a hoodie loungewear, I skip, hop and swagger to the laptop/IPad/tablet/desktop/smartphone for some work. I can do an hour of data entry than an hour on my blog and an hour freelance writing.

Follow that with a home cooked lunch, coffee and Tim Tam slammer while watching Ellen, and the afternoon reserved for research for the next day?s musings.

Dinner on the table by 7, washing up done and, as I?ve been home all day, a programme viewing schedule set up ready to go.

And, all the while, I was in my slippers and I gave myself a facial.? I?m selling a lifestyle here aren?t I?

Now I?m sure there will be days when the sunshine calls me and I lounge in the garden reading Fifty Shades of Grey, but I?m only human.? The option of working from home is a lucrative one, mostly offered to WAHMs {work at home mums}.

I, however, am looking at setting myself up for this lifestyle before the whirlwind of sleepless nights, sore nipples and milk stained everything beset our quiet abode.

It?s no different to an athlete preparing for the Olympics. The prep work starts well in advance with training, an eating program, coaches and mentors, all offering support for the one race that can last anywhere from 11 seconds to 2 hours, depending on your preferred discipline (personally, I see myself as an equestrian rider).

I?d like to think of starting to work at home now, pre-children, as prep for the big games. To be the best mother, wife and equal to my family, why can?t I start now?

Society has placed a big old ?W? on me for worker, and that?s fine, but a job is not the four walls of an office building; the mediocre conversation by the coffee maker or the tedious emails about the pot luck coming up and what the weird lady in accounting is making {mostly cheese based}.

I want a career. I want freedom to change my role every hour if I choose.

I want to be a work at home M.U.M. Motivated Unique Mandy.

I?m not expecting to change the whole world, just mine, and to be wearing my pink leopard slippers while I do so.

GUEST POST CONTRIBUTOR

My name is Amanda Edwards and I would like to describe myself using three adjectives:

Passionate; about so many things it?s hard to keep a track of them myself.

Fun; so fun in fact I have scars on my body from maybe a little too much fun.

Honest; proverbial what you see is what you get.

I love my friends, family and all things pink. Life?s just cuter with a bit of pink. I would call myself a bit of a hoarder with a minor addiction to antiques, second hand stores and vintage items. Entertaining is the name of the game at our house and I will usually bellow ?I?m the hostess with the mostest? after a few wines; but cooking, feeding and spending time around a dinner table are truly magical with witty conversation and good company. I am looking for the golden chalice of having it all and looking fabulous while doing so. Let me know if you find it. I?ve Googled it, it offered a few suggestions.

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Source: http://gaynoralder.com/2012/10/18/a-work-at-home-mum-minus-the-kids/

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Everything Elder Law: National Estate Planning Awareness Week is ...

If you haven?t heard, this week, October 15 through 21, is National Estate Planning Awareness Week! The concept was created by the National Association of Estate Planners and Councils as a call to action, because estate planning is one of the most overlooked areas of personal financial management today.

More than 120 million Americans do not have estate plans to protect themselves or their families from the unexpected. Overlooking estate planning results in many wasted dollars and hours of frustration and emotional hardship each year that can be minimized with advanced planning and action.

If you do not have an up-to-date estate plan and you happen to get sick and cannot take care of your own financial affairs, or if you suffer an untimely death, the courts will appoint someone to manage them for you. The person they appoint may not be who you had in mind to take care of these important matters.

Whether a simple trust or a more complex strategy is what you require, an estate plan should be an essential part of your lifetime planning. For peace of mind, the time to address or update your estate plan is now. If you live in Virginia, DC, or Maryland, call the Law Firm of Evan H. Farr, P.C. today to set up a free consultation.

Special Offer: Take advantage of 10% off all planning for the remainder of this month (October 18-31, 2012) in honor of National Estate Planning Awareness Week.

Source: http://everythingelderlaw.blogspot.com/2012/10/national-estate-planning-awareness-week.html

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5 Basic Home Improvement Tips for Increasing your Home's Appeal ...

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People judge things by their outside appearance ??your home is no exception. A dreary, out-dated exterior won?t attract anyone?s interest, regardless of the gorgeous wood flooring or cathedral ceilings inside. Not only should the inside of your home be attractive, but the outside should be eye catching as well.

Watch those Windows

Many prospective home buyers drive buy a house to scope out the location and view the outside before arranging a showing. If the place is vacant, chances are they?ll look through the windows for a preview. If ants and spiders are crawling all over the windows, the buyer might be wary of what?s lurking under the siding, foundation or in the attic. Windows are a point of entry for insects and other pests, and pest infestation is an absolute deal-breaker for some people. Tight window seals and a bit of ant poision can go a long way improving your home?s appeal.

Landscaping

Landscaping can light up a bare, empty yard, making a home feel cozy and welcoming. While hiring a professional landscaper may be your first thought, consider saving a bit of money by hiring a neighborhood kid or handyman to help you. If you live in the country, you can rent a hired hand for just a $1/day to mow your lawn. A well-maintained lawn hints at a well-maintained house.

Keep the Gutters Clean!

If your gutters are clogged up and rusted, there could be water damage around the house. This is the kiss of death for any resell, and it will be on the checklist of any discerning home shopper. Again, the appearance of maintenance is crucial to reaching the contract stage. Water damage causes structural problems, and if appearances indicate that possibility, you can kiss this sale goodbye.

Clean the Street

Prospective buyers turn down your street and immediately notice broken bottles on the side of the road, beer cans in the gutters, and a few gifts left by the neighbor?s dog. This WILL increase the chances that they pass your house on by. Give your street a quick once-over to keep up appearances by picking up trash. A nice neighborhood is a huge selling point.

Bribe the Neighbors

And on that note, no one wants to live next door to Randy Quaid. If the street and the neighborhood are considerations, then the Swiss Family Redneck living next door should be of concern to you. Recruit them in any way possible so they?ll clear the chairs and coolers off the front porch, put the kiddie toys in the back yard, and get cousin Cleetis out of the bushes and back on the couch. Also, think about picking up the lawn care tab for them to ensure that the Mower 9000 doesn?t make an appearance during a house showing.

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Carrie Thompson is a marketing strategist for Gutter People, GutterCleaningBucksCounty.com, providing installation, cleaning, and gutter repairs as well as deck staining and installation.

Source: http://www.ourhometools.com/5-basic-home-improvement-tips-for-increasing-your-homes-appeal

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Day Two Story? (talking-points-memo)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/256127018?client_source=feed&format=rss

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