Passwords

In this day and age of computers and on-line accounts we all live and die by our passwords. Each account, whether it is an email account or an on-line bank account, requires a password.

These passwords are the bane of my existence.

Every website (that’s spelt account) that requires these annoying things trots out the same guidance. “Must be a combination of alpha-numeric characters.”  A lot of sites also offer the service of telling us the strength of the password we have chosen.

How helpful.

These same sites also tell us that we should use a password that is easy for us to remember.

They must be joking.

I don’t know about you but I rarely, in everyday life anyway, have a wealth of “alpha-numeric” words that stay stored in my memory. And of course the simpler the password the less effective it is. I can, with a minimum of effort, remember simple combinations; CAT123 or DOG001 for instance. I don’t recommend these simple combinations. The sites will tell you they are not very strong. As I am sure they are much more knowledgeable about this sort of thing than I am; I believe them.

So this leaves us with the problem of devising ever more complex combinations.  Coming up with a twelve character combination that I can remember is nigh on impossible. Oh I can come up with an almost infinite number of these "strong" passwords.  But can I remember them?

In all likelihood  probably not.

Of course this leads to the problem of having to write the stupid things down. Now as we all know, every site in the world tells us not to do this. It weakens the strength of the password by making it possibly accessible to anyone who can read. 

I know quite a few people who have the same password for every account they use. I thought this was a marvellous idea until my daughter sagely pointed out how silly this was. If someone gets hold of this all encompassing password, they have access to everything. I also know a large number of folks who store their passwords on their computers. I also thought this fell into the realm of “good ideas” until my daughter pointed out, again, the fallacy of this kind of system.

So there we are. I have no answer to this irritating problem. I do know I feel slightly better after complaining about it. Now that I’ve done so, I will send this to my email account and then copy it to my blog.

.

Both of which, of course, I will need a password to access.