Why are plain text passwords bad, and how do I convince my boss that his treasured websites are in jeopardy?

Question

I\'ve always been of the impression that storing passwords in a database as plain text is (as someone else here put it) a Very Bad Thing™.

Historically, most of our

Answer 1

If 'handing your crackers a list of passwords on a silver platter' is not a good enough reason, what constitutes a good enough reason?