Irish Examiner view: The modern student is trapped between larger forces not of their making
![Irish Examiner view: The modern student is trapped between larger forces not of their making Irish Examiner view: The modern student is trapped between larger forces not of their making](/cms_media/module_img/7631/3815749_11_articlesmall_Student_20Protest_20MTU_20Examiner-11.jpg)
MTU student Alma Krause from Cork takes four busses each day to get to and from classes at MTU, Cork. Picture: Noel Sweeney
With so much of life’s administration being conducted online, from finance to relationships to entertainment, many of us rely on multiple internet passwords every day to conduct our business.
Many of us will also feel an uncomfortable shiver of recognition when it comes to the latest findings from the organisation CyberSkills, which specialises in cybersecurity education. Its research shows that popular sports teams, renowned radio personalities, and beloved TV programmes are among the most commonly used passwords online — thus making them prime targets for cybercriminals.
Consulting a database of 613m hacked passwords, CyberSkills found that a reliance on popular culture in the broad sense means that many people use passwords such as ‘roykeane’ and ‘glenroe’ to protect their accounts and information. Some are lazier, opting for combinations such as ‘123456’, ‘qwerty”, and even ‘password’ itself, terms which appear millions of times in that database.
This runs completely contrary to the advice given by experts in the field such as the National Cyber Security Centre, which recommends long, diverse passwords. “The longer the password, the more difficult it is to break. If you go to 10 characters or more it gets very very difficult to break it,” said a spokesperson.
In the real world, however, the sheer amount of business we transact online means using several lengthy passwords presents a problem. Changing our passwords on a regular basis is inconvenient and time-consuming.
However, we clearly can’t afford to rely on ‘123456’ to keep the cybercriminals at bay. Changing your password of random letters and digits on a regular basis is non-negotiable.
This week, Yousef Palani was jailed for life at the Central Criminal Court by Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring for the murders of Aidan Moffitt and Michael Snee.
She also sentenced Palani to a concurrent sentence of 20 years for causing serious harm to a third man, Anthony Burke, by stabbing him in the eye.
The court had heard Lorcan Staines, prosecuting, say Palani’s motivation to carry out the murders was as a result of his “hostility and prejudice” towards homosexual men. The court also heard that Palani told detectives he would have continued to kill if gardaí had not stopped him.
It would be easy for the horrifying details of this case to overshadow all other considerations, but Ms Justice Ring spoke well in the court this week when focusing on those who had suffered at Palani’s hands.
“These men should be remembered as good family members and friends, not as victims,” she said.
“The details of their lives should be more important and not the details of their death.” All too often, lurid descriptions and a killer’s hateful attempts at rationalisation can take precedence in the public imagination in such cases.
It was good to hear those who suffered being remembered instead — and not being reduced to the status of victims, but as individuals with friends and family members who loved them.