While it bears repeating that e-mail messages offering you a lot of money later in exchange for a little of yours today will lead to nothing good, all of us can do a lot more to protect our privacy and pocketbooks in the online world.

Nothing made the dangers more clear than the recent reports of a hacker gaining access to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s personal Yahoo Mail history.

According to reports, the hacker used Yahoo’s password-recovery process,

through which Yahoo users can reset lost passwords, to reset the password of the GOP’s vice presidential candidate and gain access to her e-mail.

It didn’t help that Palin’s e-mail address — gov.palin@yahoo.com — was way too obvious. It additionally didn’t help that the questions Yahoo! asks during password recovery, including “Where did you meet your spouse?” are easily answerable for even reasonably well-known persons by just about anybody who knows their way […]

Orginal post by dhiram