Avoiding spam

[Martin Wessendorf-2]

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Dear confocal listserv members--

There apparently are computers making brute-force and dictionary attacks
on accounts with popular e-mail servers such as yahoo.com and gmail.com.
  Once compromised, the account is used to send spam--sometimes to
everyone on the victim's address list.  The recipients could include
this listserv.

To help avoid problems, please take a moment to consider the strength of
the password you use on your account.  The guidelines are simple: use no
words or names from any language; longer is (exponentially) better; mix
uppercase, lowercase, numerical and symbolic characters.  Of the above,
probably the most important are to avoid words and names, and to
increase length.  A 6-character password can be cracked in seconds; a
14-character password could take years by the same machine.  Wikipedia
has a discussion of password strength if you're interested.

Thanks and secure computing!

Martin Wessendorf
--
Martin Wessendorf, Ph.D.                   office: [phone]
Assoc Prof, Dept Neuroscience                 lab: [phone]
University of Minnesota             Preferred FAX: [phone]
6-145 Jackson Hall, 321 Church St. SE    Dept Fax: [phone]
Minneapolis, MN  55455                    e-mail: [hidden email]