Tags Posts tagged with "Passwords"

Passwords

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Here are three of my most feared words: what’s your password? I understand that passwords were designed to keep out the unwelcome in any digital circumstance. Early passwords worked for ATM machines. After all, we didn’t want anyone else to be able to get our money, right?  OK, so that was four numbers that we could remember, certainly easier than committing our social security number to memory, for example.

Not any longer do we enjoy such brevity. Now we are asked to use eight or 10 numbers and letters, the combinations of which must contain capitals, lower case, numbers and some other vital symbol, like an asterisk or a dollar sign or an exclamation point. And we are admonished not to use the same password twice for fear of opening the gates to financial ruination. I would bet the fact is, though, that the only person kept at bay by the request for the password is the password holder who has forgotten the sacred assemblage of letters, numbers and pound signs.

Further, needing the password makes no sense since the frequently asked question, “Forgot your password? Press here to make another,” often allows anyone to bypass the gate anyway. All the intruder has to do is come up with a new password, and they are in.

Some passwords are useful. Certainly, we don’t want just anyone to access our banking records if we bank online. And if we pay for a service, like a subscription to a newspaper, we don’t want an undesignated person to share it. But some of the pass requirements are just plain stupid. Who else but me cares how many steps I walk per day? Or how much sleep I averaged over the past week?? Or how much I weigh? Almost as soon as I apply for an app, I have to select a password to use it, even though the app is free.

Passwords are just one irritant of the digital age, however. As long as I am voicing my frustrations, let’s consider telephones and what has become of what was a perfectly helpful way to enter in conversation with another human. Just try to call an airline or an insurance company and see how long you are put on hold. Sometimes they will tell you that the operator will be with you in 28 minutes and ask if you would like them to hold your place in line and call you back. That’s civilized. Or the automated voice will try to shove you off to their website. But you cannot ask questions of a home page beyond the couple of programmed Q&As posted there. 

When you finally get a person on the other end, after pressing any number of buttons, they will ask you to hold for the correct extension, which will ring and ring and finally disconnect you. Then you have to start all over.

I recognize that there is an attempt to have a paperless world. I understand that companies are feeling pressured financially and are trying to cut down on personnel. But does the world have to get there by driving us to distraction first? Some technology is actually helpful. Instead of a password, some apps ask for fingerprint ID. Once you register with your thumb or whichever finger you choose, you need only to present that finger in the future, and you are immediately admitted. Why isn’t that more commonly used to authenticate the user? Or ask a personal question as the price of admission only the user would be able to answer, like the name of your junior high school or your first pet’s name. Sometimes I am asked two or three questions like that, but only after I have already offered my password. And usually it’s my mother’s maiden name, which by itself used to work but no longer. Not complicated enough, I guess.

One friend figured she had solved the password problem by putting all her passwords into one file on her cellphone. Only trouble? She has forgotten the file’s password. 

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Then there is the matter of passwords. In a life that I am forever trying to simplify, passwords are the detritus on the highway. The need for them trips me up, interrupts my momentum, as I am tooling along.

Am I the only one with this frustration?

Let me illustrate by repeating some of the inane conversations on the subject. I call my credit card company to get some information. When I am lucky enough to get through to a live, warm-bodied person, he or she will ask the dreaded question: “What is your password?” “Could you give me a hint?” I ask, since upon the advice of experts, I try not to use the same password more than once. “It might be the name of your dog,” comes the sympathetic response — if I am lucky. “My first, second, third or fourth dog?” I ask nervously. We then go through the list if the customer service person on the other end has the patience and feels like prompting me. The response might be, “It starts with a ‘T.’” That only helps 50 percent of the way since two of those four dogs had names that began with T.

Sometimes, after I’ve run down the possibilities to no avail, the nameless, faceless voice at the other end, in a desperate attempt to move along the conversation, might volunteer, “Maybe it’s your mother’s maiden name?” “The last four digits of your Social Security number?” “Your first child’s birthday?” “The last four digits of your first phone number?”

And so it goes, with ultimate success possible but not assured. By this time, several minutes have elapsed, during which I could have transacted the business at hand several times over.

I have tried writing down all my passwords. But then where do I keep the list? And protected by what password? The logical place, to me since it is usually with me, is in my cellphone. “Nooo,” caution the experts. “That is the first place a thief would look.”

OK, then, how about in my glove compartment? Being a good suburbanite, I am usually only steps from my car. Again, that is such an obvious place that, like my vehicle registration, such a list should be kept anywhere but there — despite the logical need for one’s registration when in one’s car.

But I digress, probably due to the stress of the challenge at hand. Forget about car registrations. Back to the urgent subject of passwords.

We are advised never to use the same password twice or, heaven forbid, multiple times, because once our code has been broken, our whole lives and assets lie open to villains.

We are also advised to change our passwords often. Oh, please, have mercy! If I can’t remember the original passwords, how can I reasonably be expected to remember subsequent generations of passwords? They are not like children and grandchildren after all.

I am anxious about the future use of passwords. Will I be expected to know a password to shop in the supermarket? To shop online, it’s already come to that. I can’t get on my computer without my password, so no online shopping. How about filling up the tank with gas? We already must provide our ZIP codes, but that may turn out to be too broad a code. How about to visit an emergency room? Oh, but wait. We already have to produce the qualifying information on our identification cards. But if they need to follow up with the insurance company, we had better know our password before the ER can go any further. But not to worry. We can’t get to the ER anyway because we are unable to gas up the car.

This leaves me wondering: Do our passwords keep the rest of the world out or, once forgotten, do they lock us in?