When the hell did my life become a series of sign ons and passwords? I don't think I go more than a day without having to put in a password somewhere.
Although I try to keep them all the same, it's not always possible. Here at work I have 4 different apps I use that each require the password to be changed every 90 days. And even with that, I try to keep them the same and just change a number at the end, but some have to have at least one capital, some cannot have the same password repeated within a 12 month period, some need to have a minimum of 6 characters, some 8, etc. I just opened my draw to look at my little sticky to see what my current password is for one of those apps. Without that, I'd be lost.
And that's just work related. I have no idea how many web sites I need to log onto with a sign on and password. Fortunately with most of those, I stay automatically signed on most of the time, plus for the most part, I'm usually able to use the same sign on and password. How many times did I use the word "most" in the previous sentence?
Anyway, even with these sites, if someone already has the sign on I use, I have to switch to another one, and occasionally I come across one that will not accept the standard password I always try to use and I have to use a variation.
I can't even begin to count how many times I've had to have either my sign on, password, or both emailed to me so I could sign on to something. Most of those I don't have written down anywhere, but I suppose I should probably start.
Oh yeah, and then there are PIN's. The PIN for my ATM, the PIN for my gas card at work, the PIN to access my 401k account, etc. How is it that my head hasn't exploded yet?
I can't even memorize Penny's cell phone number or the password to access my voicemail at home, so how the hell does anyone expect me to memorize all of this other stuff? Ironically though, I can still tell you the phone numbers of all of my friends when we were growing up, I just can't memorize any of their new ones.
I know a lot of that has to do with the fact that I have them all programmed into my cell phone so I don't need to memorize them. I'm a victim of technology. Really, what I am is just a simple man trying to make my way in a complicated world.
Can someone please hold my hand?
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2 comments:
How is it that my head hasn't exploded yet?
Don't you mean "my head asplode"?
I have a bunch of URLs, usernames and passwords which I keep under my keyboard. Talk about laxing security. At work, I tried a similar tactic: I taped to the bottom of my keyboard some passwords to some general (work-related) sites that I visit frequently. One of my coworkers discovered this list and added it to a common password list that the office shares.
I mean, it's not like anyone would ever think of cleverly using the word "password" as a password, right?
Often at the tech support gig I work at, I have to install something on someone's machine when they're not there. A good 40% of the time, the password is on a sticky, sometimes taped to the monitor, sometimes under the keyboard, sometimes in a desk drawer (usually visible without searching).
If not, "password" is indeed the most common password, followed by "test", "test12", "test123", and so forth. The user's first name, last name, or both also gets an alarming number of them.
Passwords are a pain, but that's by design. I have about 6 high-security passwords burned into my muscle memory and I rotate them as needed, depending on how important the data behind it is.
- TM
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