Making Skype calls using a Smart TVs is actual well…pretty smart. TVs have a nice display, good sound, and they’re usually located somewhere pretty where you can gather the whole family round for that cheery Christmas message of goodwill. Unfortunately Smart TVs bring the misery of web passwords straight to the comfort of your own living room…
A TV’s Achilles heel as a general purpose computing device is that the remote control is pretty limited. Whilst on the whole you can get the job done. Tasks that are already a bit of a pain using a desktop machine, such as logging in using a password, push the remote control from basically workable to the point of being somewhat ridiculous.
Skypes’e password change
Whilst I’ll continue pick on Skype, you should bare in mind that other unusable services are available. Skype’s own guidance on choosing a secure password suggests the following:
• Use a mixture of letters, numbers and characters – like characters above the numbers on many keyboards such as %, $, £ and !.
• Avoid names as these are easily broken.
• The longer the password is, the stronger it usually is but the harder it is to recall.
• Avoid writing your password down by choosing a password you can remember.
Password guidance 101, and as we’re repeatedly told best practice and all for the good of security. What they fail to acknowledge is that, if you using a Smart TV, you’ll be entering that oh so secure password on this:
Try drawing some cool ASCII art on your Smart TV, I suspect you’ll be there a while. Of course they make up for the lack of symbols on the remote by providing “contexts” which you can happily waste your time switching between. All rather cumbersome and error prone.
___________________ _-_
\==============_=_/ ____.---'---`---.____
\_ \ \----._________.----/
\ \ / / `-_-'
__,--`.`-'..'-_
/____ ||
`--.____,-'
Not sure if you entered a # or a ~? Well don’t worry as we’ve helpfully obscured the password with asterisks so if you do make a mistake (and you will) all you need to do is to start all over again. I mean what are they thinking. If there is one place in the whole fucking universe I can control whether someone is shoulder surfing my password it’s in my own living room. Completely brainless.
Don’t worry though folks the Internet of Things (IoT) is coming, so when your typing you password into your plant pot and fridge you can look back on these times as the good old days so much for usable-security.
Whilst I’ll continue pick on Skype, you should bare in mind that other unusable services are available. Skype’s own guidance on choosing a secure password suggests the following:
• Use a mixture of letters, numbers and characters – like characters above the numbers on many keyboards such as %, $, £ and !.
• Avoid names as these are easily broken.
• The longer the password is, the stronger it usually is but the harder it is to recall.
• Avoid writing your password down by choosing a password you can remember.
Password guidance 101, and as we’re repeatedly told best practice and all for the good of security. What they fail to acknowledge is that, if you using a Smart TV, you’ll be entering that oh so secure password on this:
Try drawing some cool ASCII art on your Smart TV, I suspect you’ll be there a while. Of course they make up for the lack of symbols on the remote by providing “contexts” which you can happily waste your time switching between. All rather cumbersome and error prone.
___________________ _-_
\==============_=_/ ____.---'---`---.____
\_ \ \----._________.----/
\ \ / / `-_-'
__,--`.`-'..'-_
/____ ||
`--.____,-'
Not sure if you entered a # or a ~? Well don’t worry as we’ve helpfully obscured the password with asterisks so if you do make a mistake (and you will) all you need to do is to start all over again. I mean what are they thinking. If there is one place in the whole fucking universe I can control whether someone is shoulder surfing my password it’s in my own living room. Completely brainless.
Don’t worry though folks the Internet of Things (IoT) is coming, so when your typing you password into your plant pot and fridge you can look back on these times as the good old days so much for usable-security.
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