Comment Re: How is it a "rite of passage"? (Score 1) 49
What you say is true, however it doesn't excuse the negligence of storing passwords in plaintext, or even with poor hashing algorithms.
Just because access to the password file is a major loss requiring everyone to change their passwords, that doesn't mean a good hashing algorithm doesn't extend the period people have to change their password, or in the case of people that use good passwords, extend the likely breach of that password outside useful bounds. i.e. just because Alice's password is s3cur1ty! and will fall within the first 2 minutes of access to the hashed table, doesn't mean Bob's of (say) f37kqrLbaNQCnlfyBXnp is as even plausibly retrievable stored as a salted SHA512 hash.