Hello,
I have come across people who know people who can easily crack into facebook and gmail accounts. There are computer courses run by some reputed colleges in Mumbai where hacking (sic) is taught as a subject and those students can crack others' accounts. They don't need access to the other users' machines. Simply give them a user id and they crack it. They do it as ethical testing for friends.
How much of this is actually true and how easy is it to crack gmail and facebook accounts without the user's machine being involved?