First it was the Brits. Now it’s the Swedes who will give you their passwords for a chocolate. Paul O’Mahony reports:
Sweet-toothed Swedes are happy to trade their internet passwords for bars of chocolate, according to a poll carried out by an appalled computer magazine.
The computer buffs behind PC magazine were left reeling after they sent a female reporter out on the town to pose as a representative for an anti-virus company examining computer users’ password habits.
Anybody agreeing to answer a few questions was promised a bar of chocolate in return. And despite repeated calls from security experts for internet surfers to keep a tight lid on passwords, the sugary reward proved a distressingly successful lure.
Of the 34 people who agreed to stop and chat, divided equally between men and women, 23 revealed a selection of their passwords to the reporter, in some cases for pay sites but also for social media sites such as Facebook.
Read more in The Local (Se).
It was bad enough in 2004, but after all the media attention on privacy and security over the past 5+ years, it’s somewhat disconcerting that so many people still would give their passwords away to strangers. If anyone knows of any Data Privacy Day events in Sweden, drop me a note and I’ll post them.