Jimmy Kimmel asks people on the street for their passwords; security hilarity ensues

If someone walked up to you on the street and asked you what your password was, would you say?

The TV show Jimmy Kimmel Live sent an interviewer out on the street to ask (presumably) random people on Hollywood Boulevard what their passwords were. As you might expect, they showed only those people who gave away their passwords (and of that group, only those who signed a release form to appear on the show), but the fact that anyone did so shows that we’ve got a big security problem, and it’s us. A couple of them simply gave them away without question, while a couple of others has to be conned — very easily — into divulging.

This is the technologist’s nightmare. For all the security measures we put into our applications and devices, they can easily be undone by the users. That’s why I often make use of this cartoon when talking about security:

The article also appears in my personal blog, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.