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Bad news: Edward Snowden says computers can crack your sh*tty password in under 1 second

Published 14:55 11 Apr 2015 BST

Updated 21:08 11 Apr 2015 BST

Ben Kenyon
Bad news: Edward Snowden says computers can crack your sh*tty password in under 1 second

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NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden comes bearing bad news for anyone using a computer.

That genius password that you thought was uncrackable, probably isn't. Snowden who leaked details of mass government surveillance (and probably knows a fair bit about spying) says computers will make short work of your puny password efforts. Especially if it is any variation of 'passw0rd', 'pa55word' or the even more ingenious 'p4ssword'. So those d*ck pics you thought were safely stored on your email are probably being laughed at right now by government spies. EditingAndLayout animated GIF "Bad passwords are one of the easiest ways to compromise a system," he told British comedian John Oliver  for the Last Week Tonight show. "For someone who has a common eight-character password, it can literally take less than a second for a computer to go through the possibilities and pull a password out." Rather strangely he suggests 'MargaretThatcheris110%sexy" as a super secure password...presumably because nobody would ever have that, right? (David Cameron may be frantically changing his Facebook logins as we speak). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzGzB-yYKcc

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Bad news: Edward Snowden says computers can crack your sh*tty password in under 1 second