Security quotes of the week

Some of the password attempts are predictable (e.g. username: "root", password: "root") but others are less easy to explain. For example, there was a log-in attempt for the usernames "root" and "dark" with the password "ManualulIngineruluiMecanic", which I think is Romanian for Handbook of Mechanical Engineering. Why would someone use this password, especially for the uncommon username "dark"? Is this book common in Romania; is it likely to be by the desk of a sys-admin (or hacker) trying to choose a password? Has the hacker found the password in use on another compromised system; is it the default password for anything?

In October 2011, ticket #4185 was filed in the Tor bug tracker by a user in China who found that their connections to US-based Tor bridge relays were being regularly cut off after a very short period of time. At the time we performed some basic experimentation and discovered that Chinese IPs (presumably at the behest of the Great Firewall of China, or GFW) would reach out to the US-based bridge and connect to it shortly after the Tor user in China connected, and, if successful, shortly thereafter the connection would be blocked by the GFW.