Attention G-mail Users

Please read:

Mat Honan's account of an "epic hacking" attack is fascinating, frightening and instructive. You should read it.

Read the story of what happened to my wife when six years' worth of email — and associated photos, research notes, book drafts, calendar info, contacts, attached-file data, memorabilia, etc — were all zeroed out by a hacker, who was using the "Mugged in Madrid" scam and was probably operating from West Africa.
Read Here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/hacked/308673/

If you use Gmail, please, before you get up from this session at the computer, turn on the "2-step verification" that Google has offered, for free, since early last year. OK, you are allowed to get up if you don't have your cell phone/smartphone at hand, because you'll need that for the 2-step setup. You can read official instructions here and will find lots of associated advice around the Internet. Here is one installment I offered after my wife's hacking episode last year.
READ HERE:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/on-the-gmail-hack-you-do-not-want-this-to-happen-to-you/237471/

Now back to the original article from Mashable:
http://mashable.com/2012/08/08/gmail-2-step-verification/

Also gmail users here is the page you need to read also:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/advanced-sign-in-security-for-your.html
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/advanced-sign-in-security-for-your.html

These are cross posted. It should take 15 or 2o minutes depending on how technically savvy you are.

........OR you can just change your password to something that is NOT IN THE FREAKING DICTIONARY. 99.999% of these hacks are crude, brute force dictionary attacks where they just go through one word after another. I think the guy in the Atlantic article is too embarrassed to admit this.

Why oh why Gmail, Yahoo etc. don't change their password requirements to make stiffer passwords is beyond me. 12 characters including numbers and symbols make it too much trouble for nearly any hacker, they simply move onto an easier target.

merry