Mira Modi sends passwords through US Postal Mail.
By Raghavendra M
It has become extremely crucial for people to keep a secure password these days as cyber attacks and data thefts are on the rise.
Choosing a secure password is not an easy task for most of us as it needs to be remembered well. But, here is a solution from an 11-year-old Indian American tween from New York City, who is helping people by generating passwords that are unlikely to be cracked.
Mira Modi, who helped her mother create passwords using Diceware method at home, took a cue from the process and started a small business at dicewarepasswords.com. Here, she generates six-word passwords by hand and sells them for $2 each.
Speaking about her small business, the daughter of journalist and published author Julia Angwin, said, “I started this business because my mom was too lazy to roll dice so many times, so she paid me to make roll dice and make passwords for her. Then I realized that other people wanted them, too”.
According to her website, the Diceware method creates strong passwords that are easy to remember but extremely difficult for hackers to crack. Passwords contain random words from the dictionary, such as: alger klm curry blond puck horse.
These passwords are highly random and the length increases the time required for a computer to crack them.
While 5 words are breakable with a thousand or so PCs equipped with high-end graphics processors, six words may be breakable by an organization with a very large budget, such as a large country’s security agency. Currently seven words and longer are unbreakable with any known technology.
Creating a password using dice is pretty easy. Roll it 5 times and write down each number. Then you look up the resulting five-digit number in the Diceware dictionary, which contains a numbered list of short words. The sixth can be a number or a character. If you don’t have time for such a procedure, then Modi can help you.
She sends passwords through US Postal Mail and assures that the mail cannot be opened by the government without a search warrant.
While Modi assures that she creates only one copy of the password, she also suggests her customers to slightly tweak the passwords to secure even from her too.