███ ██████

[pseudomonas]

██████ ██ ███ ████ ███████ ████ ██████████ ███ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ███████ ██████████ █ ██████ ███████ █ ████ ██ ████ ███████ ████████ ████ ████ ██████ ██ ███ █ ████ ██ ███████ █████ ███ ██ █████ ███ ████████████ ████ ████████
██████████ ███ █ ███████ ████████ ███ █████ ████████ █████████ ███████ ████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ████

Comments

[j4]

It's risk-assessment, though, innit. I mean, I suspect that the chance of somebody haxx0ring a random hotmail account are actually a lot smaller than the chances of losing your luggage or having your phone nicked. On the other hand, I don't actually have any evidence to back that up. (Facts? Facts? This is LiveJournal!)

OTOH, a better strategy for the original problem might be to leave those details with a trusted friend/relative, and to store their phone number safely in one's brain.

[cartesiandaemon]

I suspect that the chance of somebody haxx0ring a random hotmail account are actually a lot smaller than the chances of losing your luggage or having your phone nicked.

And if your stuff *isn't* stolen, then you won't ever use from a dodgy tourist computer, but only from home: I don't know what the chances are of someone snooping on standard me->ntl->atlantic->microsoft traffic is. You'd think someone doing so would have bigger fish to fry, but I really don't know.

Of course, the real problem is likely to be you use a simple password and forget all about it, and it hangs around after you forgot it and told someone that password for some reason.

[pseudomonas]

I take your point about it being a balance of risks, but advocating it with no mention of the risk isn't terribly ethical to my mind. I don't know what the chance is of the proprietor of an internet cafe grepping all the traffic for anything that looks like a credit card number, but it's not zero.

[j4]

But if you've lost all your bags, you're cancelling your credit card anyway, right? Which is why you need to know the number?

Anyway, the risk isn't zero when you hand your credit card over in a restaurant (and I bet this magazine doesn't warn people about that when talking about the best cafés and bars to go to). The risk isn't zero when you buy something online. If you use a credit card at all, there's always a non-zero risk that somebody will steal/clone it.

[cartesiandaemon]

Always take a book not more than 3/4 finished *wherever* you go is my current motto :)

[elemy]

A women's magazine gave bad advice? really? they're usually full of such sensible advice, like "The Atkins diet can work for you" or "your boyfriend is thinking of your best friend while he's shagging you"

[hatam_soferet]

Maybe the editor of the magazine is illegally monitoring hotmail accoutns for just such activity. Didn't think of that, did you? :)