Why you should take a good look at your car's petrol gauge...

Funny Bone

Ah, Friday, chill-out day. Someone called Joel Choo posted this very funny one on Facebook:

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Here's A Useful Tip

On our recent holiday trip, my nephew was the driver of the car we all hired. Then, as we neared the first petrol stop, he realised he did not check where the fuel tank was. Should he go to the left side or the right side?

"No problemo," I told him. Look at the petrol pump symbol. Here's a couple of images I took from the Web:

In the upper pic, the filler cap is on the left side of the car. The arrow says so! In the lower pic, it is on the right side. Puzzle solved, huh? But don't be confused by the symbol itself, with the fuel hose always on the right. Ignore that. It's the arrowhead.

I have known this "secret" for a long time. Amazingly, one British motoring writer confessed he only knew about it after his mum-in-law had told him...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1280536/Has-motoring-writer-solved-riddle-plagued-drivers-decades.html

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Oh no, Singaporeans fail when it comes to passwords!

Yesterday, I had fun posting some password security jokes here. Today, there are stories in the local media about Singaporeans' bad habits on this issue. This story below is from my paper, as found in the AsiaOne site:

S'poreans lax with Net passwords

Only 10 per cent change their passwords every quarter as recommended

Lisa Oon (my paper)
Fri, Jul 27, 2012, my paper

Arts manager Jacquelyn Soo never changes the passwords for her online accounts, such as for online banking, even though she is aware that doing so regularly is a good habit.

The reason? She is too used to the existing passwords. And with so many passwords to commit to memory, having to remember new ones is a chore for her.

Many Singaporeans do not change their passwords, too, going by the findings of a survey released yesterday.

The findings showed that 52 per cent of Singaporeans who use online-banking services never change their passwords, while only 10 per cent change their passwords every quarter as recommended.

The survey also found that online banking was one of the most popular online activities at home for Singaporeans, with 72 per cent of them doing so.

When it came to filing tax returns online, 60 per cent of Singaporeans said they did not change their passwords. For those who use other government services, 59 per cent never change their passwords.

The poll was done by Assurity Trusted Solutions, an Infocomm Development Authority subsidiary which runs the national two-factor authentication system. Assurity surveyed 346 Singaporeans in April.

Ms Maria Cruz, a technical- communications specialist at IT security firm Trend Micro's TrendLabs, said of the findings: "Password security has always been a trade-off between what people can remember and what's difficult for attackers to guess."

She said that since passwords have to be remembered, people tend to pick ones that are easy, and simple to recall. "Once we have internalised this password, it becomes difficult to change," she said. But Ms Cruz added that changing passwords often helps to keep hackers guessing, should they want to hack into an account.

Mr Ethan Wang, a research director of banking and investment at research firm Gartner, said many people do not change their passwords often as "there is no urgency" to do so, unless they are alerted to fraud cases. He said some banks do not require customers to change online-banking passwords regularly if the banks have taken other security measures.

For Mr Gary Quek, 34, who works in the finance sector, this means using a security token to generate a second, one-time-use password for online banking. A two-factor authentication system like this is safer than relying on one password, he said.

Mr Chai Chin Loon, chief operating officer of Assurity, said: "Whenever possible, the public should activate two-factor authentication as it reduces the risk of online fraud and identity theft."

http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20120727-361639.html