MySQL remote access
newexception.com
newexception.com
A much more secure way would be to make a SSH tunnel, and forward the SQL connection through it - for the MySQL server, the traffic still originates from localhost, you are not exposing the MySQL server for the whole world to crack, and SSH provides significantly better security options than MySQL could hope for. (This has the drawback that you need to set up the SSH tunnel before connecting with the MySQL client, but 1. most decent SQL tools can do this for you automagically and 2. if yours can't, it's a simple command-line invocation)
The user 'root' was just an example.
As for the example, SSH (or most other remote access solutions) has much more secure modes of operations than MySQL (or any other database) - which shouldn't really be surprising. One of these products is a database (where security is just an afterthought), whereas the other is a tool for secure remote access (where security is the main goal; unless you're the type of user who's blindly clicking "yes yes yes agree yes agree sure yes yes," it's very hard to break SSH).
If you insist on deploying insecure systems, that's mostly your problem; please don't advise others to do likewise (as you're actively causing harm by this).
i will post a topic about ssh tunneling if that makes you happy. :)