It appears my seduction technique is not so far off the mark, with Infosecurity Europe doing their annual poll to see who will give their passwords away.
According to the survey, 45 per cent of women were quite happy to give strangers, posing as market researchers, their email password, in return for a chocolate bar, as opposed to only 10 per cent of men.
I am not suggesting for one moment that girl geeks would give their passwords away for a snickers; heck I can’t get phone numbers in exchange for gin & tonic; what I am highlighting is the fact that the report focused on the different between the sexes and made from of it, and the press are running with it. The problem is the survey is bogus; I’ve been in Waterloo station when they did this a few years ago and they approached me. I lied, made up a password and got the chocolate. There’s no way of checking the authentication information given was true. The survey could show that 45% of women will lie for chocolate (actually lets not got there, I’ll only get bitter). What is worrying is that the demographics attempted to highlight a difference between the sexes without any decent research at all, and the computer press continue to perpetuate the myth without any critical thinking.
(Now, I’m in the US right now, what will you all do for a box of See’s Candies? Email offers to …..)
