Americans are pants at password security

Americans are pants at password security
John Leyden, The Register 2005-05-06

Americans are just as blasé about password security as the Brits, according to a new survey. Two out three three people (180 of 272) approached in a downtown San Francisco street by researchers were happy to provide their password in exchange for a coffee gift card. Of those respondents that declined offering their actual password, 51 provided a clue about their password in exchange for a $3 Starbucks gift voucher.

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Americans are pants at password security 2005-05-07
Anonymous

The effectiveness of social engineering has already been shown a million times before. VeriSign themselves are on record for falling victim to it....

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Americans are pants at password security 2005-05-07
Anonymous

So, how do they know the people actually gave their real password? Did they have a way to verify it?

-- Disbeliever

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Americans are pants at password security 2005-05-09
Anonymous

Heh. For free coffee, you can have any 'password' I care to invent. How do we know that people were *actually* giving up their passwords?

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Americans are pants at password security 2005-05-10
Anonymous

I think this is a perfect example of the Starbucks drug racket. People are so addicted they would eventually give everything they own just to get just "one....more....latte...."

Seriously -- this "study" tells us nothing. There was no way to verify true passwords. As a result I am surprised to s...

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