Understanding Plain Text Password Risks on Popular Websites

You might remember my previous posting on websites that insist on sending your username and password credentials over the internet in plain text (in other words, anyone in between you and the destination web server can 'sniff' these credentials if they know what they are doing). This article created a substantial amount of feedback from both users and website owners. Some agreed to modify their authentication methods, some accused me working for their competition. No, I'm not making that up.

The truth of the matter is that there are more 'popular' sites out there that still insist on sending login credentials over the wire in plain text. Even my beloved ittoolbox.com sends my authoring credentials over the wire in the clear. (*waves at Martin to fix*) Let's explore some other sites, shall we?

The link for this article located at IT Toolbox is no longer available.