At 08:37 this morning, I received the following email (hyperlinks taken out of course - wouldn't want someone else changing my own password!) - although perhaps this is more cautionary than anything else; they do state the passwords were encrypted after all (yet perhaps more of a worry, since Graphics Processing Units (GPU's) seem to be fairly good at brute forcing passwords these days).

So yesterday I was talking to my cousin and he was telling me his latest million dollar scheme, involved hacking some stuff, basically he thought I could do it... To clarify I'm nothing close to a hacker, I'm more of a observative person, a little curious I decided to take over someones Facebook Account (permission asked by the owner) to check if I could, within (and yes I timed this) 13 minutes I was in, not only with his Facebook, but Email, Twitter and basically life online.

In my tower, a bare room with a PC and a router, maybe a few other electronic gadgets, setting right the wrongs of the world. maybe taking 1% off the top for me.

These thoughts came to mind while reading through that very excellent crime trilogy by Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with fire, The Girl who kicked the Hornet's nest). The hero -or rather the protagonist - is the investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist. The anti-hero, (still one of the good guys, you understand) is the socially inept, morose, abused, young woman Lisbeth Salander. Now Lisbeth has one remarkable talent - she is a hacker supreme. She does not do it generally hack for her own gain - she does it to get back at people who have harmed her, or her friends. Then she is a woman possessed and will stop at nothing to win.