Your Password Solution, Courtesy of an 11-Year-Old With Her Own Start-Up

The Takeaway | Nov 5, 2015

Click on the audio player above to hear this interview.

How many passwords do you have? Five? Ten? More? Think about it: you have your home computer, your work computer, your phone, multiple email addresses, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, online bank accounts, insurance, credit card companies, utility companies, etc., etc.

11-year-old Mira Modi understands how hard it can all be. And so she launched Diceware, a start-up that makes cryptographically smart passwords for two dollars a pop.

Her inspiration? Her own mother, Julia Angwin. Angwin specializes in all things related to privacy. She's an investigative reporter at ProPublica and author of Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance.

Both joined The Takeaway in studio.  

What you'll learn from this segment: 

  • Why the way we think about passwords is often wrong. 
  • How an 11-year-old is coming up with complicated, but easy to remember passwords. 
  • How a privacy-oriented mother is reacting to her daughter's online endeavors. 
Mira Modi
(The Takeaway)

 

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