Don't Use These Passwords!

Huffington Post published an article from the Wall Street Journal listing the top 50 most common passwords people use. Get a little creative with your passwords and protect your email accounts, banking, and other important logins.


On Sunday, hackers exposed usernames and passwords stored in the Gawker Media user database.

The Wall Street Journal analyzed the leaked data and produced a list of the top 50 commonly used Gawker passwords. Believe it or not, the list is rife with security no-nos, such as ascending numbers and easy-to-guess words.

The following are the top 13 most popular passwords, according to WSJ's examination of the 188,279 passwords that were leaked:

1. 123456

2. password

3. 12345678

4. lifehack

5. qwerty

6. abc123

7. 111111

8. monkey

9. consumer

10. 12345

11. 0

12. letmein

13. trustno1

It is startling to note that over 3,000 users chose "123456" as their login password, according to the Journal. Almost as jarring: Nearly 2,000 people went with "password," and more than 1,000 users decided that "12345678" was a secure choice. The list also includes "gizmodo" (#19), "starwars" (#23), "f---you" (#31), "gawker" (#40) and "internet" (#50).

The hack has been affecting other websites: Twitter was hit by a spam attack that is believed to be linked to the Gawker hack. According to All Things D, "LinkedIn has temporarily disabled the accounts of any users whose email addresses turned up in the public database of hacked accounts. It's asking those users to reset their passwords." Given the simplicity of some of the most popular passwords, let's hope that nobody recycled these passwords for email or online bank accounts.

New Beach Volleyball Tour - The National Volleyball League

With the bankruptcy and selling of the AVP assets, it will be interesting to see who steps up to promote and manage Beach Volleyball Leagues around the US. USA Volleyball has stated they plan to run 4-6 events in 2011 (mainly on the West Coast) and The National Volleyball League (launched by Albert Hanneman, 18-year AVP Alumni) will launch in 2011 and run 3 events with expansion into 2012.

Press Release from The National Volleyball League
The NVL is proud to announce plans to produce three tournaments in 2011. They will include Miami, Atlanta and Las Vegas!

We are in deep discussions with USAV and IMG to work directly with Beach Championship Series to enhance the number of quality events so that players can have a larger series of legitimate events to play in. USAV and IMG stepped up first and announced their 5 events. It is a great opportunity for the National Volleyball League to partner with the only known series for 2011 and work with IMG who is regarded as the best event company in the world. Our events will follow the BCS operational expertise and quality of execution to ensure that each tournament will be of the highest quality for players, fans, and our sponsors.

USAV will sanction National Volleyball League events as we have strategically picked our events in locations that are geographically complimentary to the BCS schedule allowing more of the country to experience pro beach volleyball. We are planning to host events in Miami, Atlanta, and Las Vegas in 2011 and at least double that number of events in 2012.

Having USAV's sanction and IMG's proven track record alongside valuable sponsors
immediately provides the National Volleyball League credibility in the fragile market
place left behind by the AVP. The fact is that volleyball is still very popular and
companies and cities are thrilled to have a fresh start and be involved with pro beach
volleyball. We will offer $150,000 prize money and set the same standards for player
services and concerns with identical referees and medical services so there is uniformity
across the board.

There are many more details about the National Volleyball League that we will announce shortly. Stay tuned!

Wikileaks forced to change domain and hosting

Since the site Wikileaks published over 250k US and International documents about the war in Afgasnistan and Iraq, Amazon.com (their hosting company) and their DNS provider have cancelled their contracts, forcing them to look for international hosting and DNS providers.

BBC
Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks has been forced to change its web address after the company providing its domain name cut off service.

EveryDNS.net said it had terminated services because Wikileaks.org had come under massive cyber attacks.

But Wikileaks has already reappeared using a Swiss web address.

Wikileaks has also used the micro-blogging site Twitter to urge its fans to redistribute its "raw" net address so it can be viewed at any time.

This numerical internet protocol (IP) address remains live and accessible even when web domains - the normal "www" addresses used to access most sites - are unavailable.
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