Disclaimer: "Bill Nye The Science Guy" belongs to The Walt Disney Company.
"Have you ever seen a movie where a character attempts to gain unauthorized access by guessing a password? Have you ever wondered if that could happen to you?" Bill asked.
"Well, let me give you some advice on how to protect yourself."
"First, never make your passwords a single word that can be found in an English dictionary. Use a mix of letters and numbers. Better yet, use punctuation symbols if possible."
"Second, the longer you can make your passwords, the better. Now, you may be thinking, Couldn't somebody gain access to my account using a password cracking program even if I follow these suggestions? You may have seen this scenario in a Hollywood movie or in a computer game. This is an unrealistic strategy. Let me explain why."
"Let's say you have a password that consists of numbers, uppercase letters and lowercase letters, and that password is 12 characters long. 26 letters in the alphabet multiplied by two plus ten numerical digits equals 62 possibilities for a single character in the password. If the password is 12 characters long, the number of possiblities is 62 to the 12th power, which is 3.2 sextillion possible character strings. That's 3.2 times ten to the 21st power. With an Internet connection speed of 100 megabytes per second, it would take 1,023,042 years to transmit all the possible passwords."
"So most people try to trick you into sharing your password with them. DON'T DO IT!"
"Also, some computer viruses can record your keystrokes. So keep your antivirus software up to date, watch where you surf, and be careful what attachments you open."
The End. I wish there was a Bill Nye episode on this.