Firstly, what exactly is a weak password? Let me answer this in a roundabout way by focusing on strong passwords; a strong password is one which has a high degree of what we call entropy, or in simple terms, one that is as long and as random (in terms of both character types and sequence), as possible. As the entropy link explains:

People are notoriously remiss at achieving sufficient entropy to produce satisfactory passwords.

People struggle with strong password because they revert to patterns that are easily memorable. The patterns may be in a natural form such as someone’s name, a date, or a place or they may be memorable keyboard patterns such as “qwerty” or “123456”. These are all highly predictable patterns.

Let me demonstrate the problem with this based on a few recent events. Firstly we have Gawker who last December were the victims of an attack which lead to the disclosure of somewhere in the order of one million user accounts. Worse still, these accounts were posted online and readily accessible by anyone who wanted to take a look at who had signed up to the service and what their password was.

The interesting thing in the context of password strength is the prevalence of bad password choices. Take a look at these:

123456, password, 12345678, qwerty, abc123, 12345, monkey, 111111, consumer, letmein, 1234, dragon, trustno1, baseball, gizmodo, whatever, superman, 1234567, sunshine, iloveyou, starwars, shadow, princess, cheese, helloworld

These 25 passwords were used a total of 13,411 times by people with Gawker accounts. The first one – 123456 – was used over two and a half thousand times alone.

Another very similar example was an attack last month on rootkit.com. Password analysis on the breached database showed these top 25 passwords:

123456, password, rootkit, 111111, 12345678, qwerty, 123456789, 123123, qwertyui, letmein, 12345, 1234, abc123, dvcfghyt, 0, r00tk1t, ìîñêâà, 1234567, 1234567890, 123, 11111111, master, aaaaaa, 1qaz2wsx, helloworld

Look familiar? Worse still, you can easily see the corresponding username if you know where to look (I’ve deliberately blurred these but the originals are still there in the link):

But here’s what’s really interesting about both these cases and the relevance to why password strength is important – all of these were stored in an encrypted fashion in the database. Without delving into cryptography concepts, the core of the problem with both these sites is that the encryption was implemented badly.

When a database such as rootkit.com is released into the wild with poorly implemented encryption, hackers are able to recreate the encryption process by feeding in a dictionary of common passwords and attempting to compare them to the database to find matches. The nature of encryption can mean this process needs to be repeated millions of times, but it’s an entirely automated process.

Password dictionaries are commonly available (wonder if you see any of yours in there?), as is the software to run them against the breached database. The biggest limitation is the computing power required to perform a fairly resource intensive process but as we all know, compute power is increasing at a very rapid pace and besides, you can easily acquire enough processing power to test 400,000 passwords per second for only 28 cents per minute.

But the bottom line is this; if your password conforms to a recognizable pattern, there’s a good chance it will either be in a password dictionary or guessable based on other known information about you (wife’s or kids name, etc.) If it is short or doesn’t contain sufficient variations in characters, the number of attempts required to guess it are going to be much lower; you become the low hanging fruit.

I’m going to assume that you log onto a bunch of different websites; Facebook, Gmail, eBay, PayPal, probably some banking, maybe even some discussion forums, etc etc.

Every time you create a new account for a website, are you creating a new unique password for that account? Do you use uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and punctuation as well?

If you didn’t answer “yes” to these questions, then you’ve got a problem! But the thing is, there is simply no way you can remember all your unique, strong passwords and the sooner you recognize this, the sooner you can embrace a more secure alternative.

The tyranny of multiple accounts

Think about it; how many accounts do you have out there on the internet? 10? 20? 50? I identified 90 of mine recently and there are many more I’ve simply forgotten about. There is absolutely no way, even with only 10 accounts, you can create passwords that are strong, unique and memorable.

What happens is that people revert to patterns including family names, pets, hobbies and all sorts of natural, somewhat predictable criteria. Patterns are a double-edged sword in that whilst they’re memorable, they also predictable so even if the pattern might seem obscure, once it’s known, well, you’ve got a bit of a problem.

Patterns and predictable words are bad, but what’s even worse is password reuse. Because we simply end up with so many of the damn things, the problem of memorizing them gets addressed by being repetitive. Easy? Yes. Secure? No way.

Read part 2 here

It’s addictive! Your outdated music can leap right into the world of digital music. An absolute buffet of useful options for listening to music now exists on the Internet. From the worlds’ great FM radio stations to “cloud services” like iHeart Radio and Pandora that offer better, quality sound and more control over your music selections. Think about it like this: Dub-Step from Paris, Country from Tennessee and Rock from Los Angeles. NAD’s two-piece DAC 1 is a very simple way to listen to any music stored on – or streamed to – your home computer. This wireless technology features full audio bandwidth and remains uncompressed for the best sound quality.

INSTALLATION

Simply insert the DAC 1 Transmitter Module into the USB port on your computer. Now, the NAD DAC 1 is the sound card for your computer and anything you can hear on your PC is digitally transmitted to your hi-fi! Think about how convenient it is that your computer can remain in your home office while you are both controlling and listening to the music on your computer wirelessly in your living room.

UNBELIEVABLE SOUND

The DAC 1 Transmitter bypasses all the analogue circuitry in your computer and communicates directly with the DAC 1 receiver connected to your hi-fi system. Once the receiver gets the signal, it then converts and sends it as an analog signal to your stereo amplifier. There is also a coax digital output that allows downstream digital processing. Analogue conversion uses Burr-Brown OPAmps and 24/192 DACs with selected passive components in a proprietary circuit. This attention to detail is unusual at the price and is the reason for NAD’s incredible musical sound.

AFFORDABLE

The DAC 1 Wireless USB brings a whole new world of musical experience and options to your hi-fi capability. It may be the best thing you’ve spent money on in a quite a while! For more information on this awesome wireless unit, call or send me a message by using the form at the top-right of this page!

We are very honored, to say the least, to add this to the flood of awards we have received in the past few weeks.

In their summary they rave,

“…among the finest sensibly-priced high-performance speakers we have yet heard” … “a full-range sound that is at once powerful and effortless, yet remarkably nuanced and refined…”

And,

“…a true benchmark system in terms of performance per dollar!”

Click Here if you’d like to read the review or send me a message, I’ll be glad to help you learn more about this great system!

Yes it is that time of the year, and we are always asked if we have any great gifts that are very reasonable to buy. The answer is of course a resounding yes!

Headphones and Ear Buds always make great gifts…that is if they are very good. And guess what, we carry the very best!

We have full size over the ear Headphones, In Ear Buds…many with I-Pod or Android controls and Microphones built right in. We have incredible wireless headphone set-ups for late night TV listening, and we even have some of the very finest noise cancelling headphones for the traveler in your life.

Remember I said the very best? These sets are from B&W (I bet you did not even know they made this kind of goody did you), Klipsch and Sennheiser.

And speaking of B&W we also have an absolutely stunning pair of powered speakers to plug into your computer.

How about a Great sounding I-Pod dock? Got one from NAD that is good with everything including I-Phone 4 and sounds incredible.

We have additional 3D glasses in stock from Sharp, Sony and Samsung! Everyone can always use some extra 3D glasses!

How about some protection? Give a Panamax or Furman Power center to the one you love to protect the gear they love.

Someone you know want to hide their gear? Give them an IR Repeater kit so their remote still works even when the doors are closed.

Turntables have made a huge come back, and we have a great selection of tables from project. Let the Audiophile on your Christmas list re-discover his or her love of Vinyl.

A quick and easy stocking stuffer needed? Pick up a bottle of ATA Skreen Clean, a safe and effective cleaner for all of your TV’s, computer Monitors…even your sunglasses!

Someone on your list want a Powered I-Pod speaker system? We have the B&W Zeppelin Mini and Zeppelin Air. We also have the Arcam R-Cube which has a built in battery so you can carry your I-Pod system outside for up to 10 hours at a time.

There are a bunch more but this is getting long…so if you’d like to know more, stop by our retail store, give us a call or message me using the contact form located at the top-right of this page!

Just a few short weeks ago I wrote to tell you about the new Sharp 70” LED/LCD TV. The largest and probably the coolest LED/LCD TV on the market. So there all you other guys with your wimpy little 65” sets!

Well, that was after all of a few weeks ago and our friends at Sharp have been busy fellows lately. So now we have on display and ready to deliver the Newer, Bigger, 80” LED/LCD TV!

Just to make this clear an 80” set has almost two times the display area of a 55” set. Remember a few years ago when a 55” TV was huge? Not anymore.

You have to see this beauty to understand just how big 80” looks. We have it in the wall right inside our main showroom…flanked by an amazing McIntosh Surround Sound System. This set is a 2D, there will be a 3D version of it early next year…but if 3D is not your thing…your newer, bigger screen is ready.

So stop in today and see what 80” of LED/LCD TV looks like!, You’re going to want one!

Something we are trying to do more all of the time; just got a lot easier and great sounding. Our friends at NAD have introduced the DAC1, a wireless USB Digital to Analog Converter.

Just plug the USB Dongle into your computer, plug the DAC into your Audio System and presto all of the music files stored on your computer are playing on your system.

This is not a Wi-Fi device…it is a point to point wireless device. What this means is that you get CD or better sound quality available for your files; and set up is plug and play…no messing around to get the Wi-Fi settings right. Sound quality is of course still dependent on the quality of the file storage you have chosen. But if you store your files in a high quality form the DAC 1 can play back up to 24/192 bit files.

So now you can have ease of moving your music from wherever your computer is to your Audio system. You can have great sound quality. You can have all of this without interference from other Wi-Fi enabled devices in or around your home.

Having trouble viewing this video? Click Here.

I think it is safe to say that almost everyone has owned a television whether it was a CRT, Flat Panel, or even using a projector. Among the millions of people who have televisions, how many of us have ever considered having someone professionally calibrate them? Wait, What is a calibration and why do I need it?

The purpose of calibrating a TV is to have the TV look the best it can while providing the picture the way it was intended to be. The two things impacted most by a calibration is having greater detail by achieving better black levels and up to 50% savings in energy consumption. Consider it like this, as consumers there is two things that make a television look good to us. Those two are an overly bright picture that will hurt our eyes in our own house and over-saturated colors that make grass on a playing field look like plastic. The reason they come out of the box like this is because the manufacturers know what the consumer is looking for when they are looking at a wall of TV’s. Whichever is more colorful and brighter is always the TV that is purchased. Once you get the TV to your house and start watching it, you notice how the brightness is very fatiguing to your eyes. That is one of the many reasons you want to get your television calibrated by a professional. The comparison used is that leaving your HDTV at factory settings is like installing a new air conditioner without setting the thermostat. Even basic picture setting adjustments could improve your TV’s performance dramatically. We believe that having your TV calibrated will have a greater impact on the picture quality than the brand or features employed within it.

What is adjusted within the television to make the picture quality that much better? Well first you have to begin with a source that you know how it was produced. This is the reason we use generator to produce test patterns. The settings we adjust are brightness, contrast, color, tint, bit-mapping, sharpness, gray scale, geometry, color gamut, and gamma. The result of the adjustments gives you an incredible picture quality like you have never seen before. These adjusts cannot be done by your average untrained individual. To achieve the best quality you have to calibrate the TV to a specific day and night setting in the room by using thousands of dollars worth of equipment to take measurements while you fine tune the settings.

This is by far the most important investment you can make to have your new or old television perform at the best of its ability. If you have any questions about our calibration service please feel free to give us a call, send us a message using the form located at the top-right of this page or just come in and see me, Brandon!

The McIntosh C50 is a McIntosh first in the way they have combined stereo analog sources in unison with assignable digital inputs. What is amazing is music that is stored on computer programs like J. River, and I-Tunes are now available. They are available through a dedicated USB input making it very easy to access your downloaded music. Another great feature is its programmable eight band tone control, which is fantastic. One can change inputs and the programmed EQ setting follow suit. So, if you know you are generally playing vinyl, with a rock genre, the EQ would be preset for it, change over to a CD and the EQ is set for it. The C50 may also be combined with a multi-channel system using the home theater pass through function making it the ultimate pre-amplifier. This thing does just about everything!

A few other features that you may not be aware of on the C50 are the twin moving coils/moving magnet phono sections. The input impedance for moving magnet is 47K Ohms with a range of 50-750 picofarads, and a sensitivity rating of 4.5mV for 2.5 Volts RMS. The moving coil has a range on 25, 50, 100, 200, 400, 1000 Ohms @ 1000 picofarads, and the sensitivity rating of .45mV for 2.5V rated output. So, rest assured you can dial in your phono cartridge with ease. These phono features run about $750.00 on a standalone unit so it’s nice that McIntosh has included them. I think it’s fantastic to see a digital stage and an analog a stage in one unit! The C50 has more still, four high performance stereo digital audio inputs, a source selectable processor port, and last but not least output level meters with illumination control. This is by far the most advanced pre-amp McIntosh has ever offered.