WHAT'S THE PASSWORD?
Last year I bought a new phone for my wife and I put her on my AT&T billing plan. I figured that would make everything nice and convenient because we’d be on one plan and it will eliminate any more complications in our already confusing and bitterly uncontrollable lives.
I’m kidding, life is pretty good in our house. But what I thought was going to be simplicity, turned into more complication. I’m an iPhone user and my plan basically runs through Apple on the AT&T plan. My wife’s phone is AT&T and we have one bill, but to get her plan updates and minutes, we had to make an on-line AT&T account and that meant one thing. Making ANOTHER on-line account with MORE PASSWORDS!
I can’t even keep track of all the passwords I have NOW, let alone another one. I have an App on my iPhone that keeps track of them, but it’s so out of control that I have to reference it five or six times a day. It’s absurd! But I guess this is the price we pay for modern technology. I do just about everything on-line and the convenience is bar-none. I don’t have to deal with bank lines or snooty salespeople. I don’t have to hold for the next available agent when I buy stuff or write endless checks by hand. It’s pretty amazing.
But the amount of log-in names and passwords I have is just ridiculous. Sometimes I have to log into a site that I only plan to use once in my life and never use it again. That is annoying because I then start getting emails from them when I could care less about them. I get emails from a printing company I used three years ago and although I’ve asked to be removed from their mailing list, I still get them. I did a “guess the Oscar winners” contest last year and now I’m part of this film forum email subscription thingy. I’ve been asked to be removed—no such luck. I even get a random email or two from Ben & Jerry’s because I wanted some free ice cream at one point. Now I’m plagued by their emails even though I’ve removed myself from their email list about four times.
Sometimes in our desire to make out lives easier, we can end up making them harder, or at least just as complicated. I may get less paper in the mail from my bank, which saves trees, but yesterday I got two letters in the mail from Chase about getting a credit card. TWO! Why two? There goes those trees I just saved by doing my on-line banking. And even though I do all my banking on-line, my bank also sends me a bank statement once in a while that says “Paperless Billing” on the envelope. Really? Paperless, huh? I think I heard another tree fall in the forest.
Companies always suggest using different names and passwords and sometimes it’s hard to think of creative names when you’re working on the fly. A lot of times it’s your name or nickname of some sort with some relevant numbers, like your birthday backwards or you wife’s birthday. Sometimes you completely forget a password and you have to ask them to email it to you. Then you get it and you’re like “Oh, yea, now I remember. Boy, that’s pretty stupid password.”
Sometimes you have to answer the personal question that you’ve created for yourself to prove it’s you. My favorite question is “What’s your favorite restaurant?” Well, considering I made this account 7 years ago and now I live in a different city and have enjoyed 321 restaurants since then, I have no idea! Then you fail that question and get another one like “what’s your sister’s birth city?” or “What’s your favorite sports team?” Sometimes these questions are difficult to answer and you’re the idiot who came up with the answers!
Now certain sites have a “strength of password” indicator on the side where you enter a new password. You enter your new password name (that must contain at least one capital letter and a number) and a colored bar comes up telling you if your entire identity is within a hairs breath of being stolen. A green bar means strong and red bar means weak. If the password is weak, you can add a bunch of stupid numbers at the end of the password, so as to not only confuse any hackers, but to guarantee you’ll have to have your new password sent to you by email when you forget it.
And what if you do have your new password sent to you by email. Is your email password strong enough to stop hackers from getting access to your email who can then, in turn, take that new password? It’s like a mirror inside a mirror inside a mirror….
The worst is when you have your password emailed to you, but the email is actually a URL link that diverts you to a site where you log in and change your password. That takes forever and half the time you end up remembering your name or you RE-name it what you named it the first time. Sometimes you have to enter your password and then immediately re-enter the exact same thing directly below it. I think this is a test to see if you’re either paying attention or a complete moron.
If you work in an office, sometimes the company make you change the password to your computer every quarter. That’s a pain in the ass! Unless you’re working in the Pentagon, it’s completely unnecessary. I doubt your computer is holding vital information that will topple your company, so why change the password? Why even HAVE a password? When you’re out sick and someone needs something on your computer, don’t they call you at home anyway to get your password? Most people just write their password on a post-it note and stick it to the monitor! Talk about high security.
Sometimes people are so fed up entering passwords that they simply write PASSWORD as their password. If they really get adventurous, they might write password 1 as their password. Or Password with a capital P. But even this is hard to figure out if you’re just the common man. Sit in front of your friend’s computer and stare at that blinking password log-in space. Have any idea as to what they could possibly have as their password? Of course not! Even the best detectives can’t figure it out. You could probably do weeks of CSI-type character study break-downs and still not figure it out. And if you did figure out the name, like your friend the dog lover’s password is “doggybreath,” how would you know it’s not doggybreath7621, or doggybreath90210 or some other number variable? You could be there for months trying to log on.
We spend so much time making complicated passwords that by now we can probably just use 1234 as a password and it would be fine. How many hackers actually think to enter something so basic? I guess these computer bad guys have software that generates algorithms that breaks-down thousands of number and word combinations in seconds so 1234 may get them in your computer in about 3 seconds. And if they do, what are they getting? My credit card info? Someone charged an HD flat screen to my Visa once and I called it in to the credit card company to claim it wasn’t my charge. They removed the charges within seconds, but seemed completely disinterested in trying to track down the people who did it even though they had the address where the TV was shipped to! Well, if they don’t care if fraudulent charges are flying around, why should I? As long as I get my money back, I guess.
I have passwords for eBay, Paypal, my bank, insurance company, health providers, cell phone, iTunes, Amazon, Fresh Direct, Facebook, Twitter, my 401K, email, my website, sports websites and about 15 others. Hopefully I won’t forget the password to the iPhone App that holds all these passwords or I’d be seriously screwed.
I’m kidding, life is pretty good in our house. But what I thought was going to be simplicity, turned into more complication. I’m an iPhone user and my plan basically runs through Apple on the AT&T plan. My wife’s phone is AT&T and we have one bill, but to get her plan updates and minutes, we had to make an on-line AT&T account and that meant one thing. Making ANOTHER on-line account with MORE PASSWORDS!
I can’t even keep track of all the passwords I have NOW, let alone another one. I have an App on my iPhone that keeps track of them, but it’s so out of control that I have to reference it five or six times a day. It’s absurd! But I guess this is the price we pay for modern technology. I do just about everything on-line and the convenience is bar-none. I don’t have to deal with bank lines or snooty salespeople. I don’t have to hold for the next available agent when I buy stuff or write endless checks by hand. It’s pretty amazing.
But the amount of log-in names and passwords I have is just ridiculous. Sometimes I have to log into a site that I only plan to use once in my life and never use it again. That is annoying because I then start getting emails from them when I could care less about them. I get emails from a printing company I used three years ago and although I’ve asked to be removed from their mailing list, I still get them. I did a “guess the Oscar winners” contest last year and now I’m part of this film forum email subscription thingy. I’ve been asked to be removed—no such luck. I even get a random email or two from Ben & Jerry’s because I wanted some free ice cream at one point. Now I’m plagued by their emails even though I’ve removed myself from their email list about four times.
Sometimes in our desire to make out lives easier, we can end up making them harder, or at least just as complicated. I may get less paper in the mail from my bank, which saves trees, but yesterday I got two letters in the mail from Chase about getting a credit card. TWO! Why two? There goes those trees I just saved by doing my on-line banking. And even though I do all my banking on-line, my bank also sends me a bank statement once in a while that says “Paperless Billing” on the envelope. Really? Paperless, huh? I think I heard another tree fall in the forest.
Companies always suggest using different names and passwords and sometimes it’s hard to think of creative names when you’re working on the fly. A lot of times it’s your name or nickname of some sort with some relevant numbers, like your birthday backwards or you wife’s birthday. Sometimes you completely forget a password and you have to ask them to email it to you. Then you get it and you’re like “Oh, yea, now I remember. Boy, that’s pretty stupid password.”
Sometimes you have to answer the personal question that you’ve created for yourself to prove it’s you. My favorite question is “What’s your favorite restaurant?” Well, considering I made this account 7 years ago and now I live in a different city and have enjoyed 321 restaurants since then, I have no idea! Then you fail that question and get another one like “what’s your sister’s birth city?” or “What’s your favorite sports team?” Sometimes these questions are difficult to answer and you’re the idiot who came up with the answers!
Now certain sites have a “strength of password” indicator on the side where you enter a new password. You enter your new password name (that must contain at least one capital letter and a number) and a colored bar comes up telling you if your entire identity is within a hairs breath of being stolen. A green bar means strong and red bar means weak. If the password is weak, you can add a bunch of stupid numbers at the end of the password, so as to not only confuse any hackers, but to guarantee you’ll have to have your new password sent to you by email when you forget it.
And what if you do have your new password sent to you by email. Is your email password strong enough to stop hackers from getting access to your email who can then, in turn, take that new password? It’s like a mirror inside a mirror inside a mirror….
The worst is when you have your password emailed to you, but the email is actually a URL link that diverts you to a site where you log in and change your password. That takes forever and half the time you end up remembering your name or you RE-name it what you named it the first time. Sometimes you have to enter your password and then immediately re-enter the exact same thing directly below it. I think this is a test to see if you’re either paying attention or a complete moron.
If you work in an office, sometimes the company make you change the password to your computer every quarter. That’s a pain in the ass! Unless you’re working in the Pentagon, it’s completely unnecessary. I doubt your computer is holding vital information that will topple your company, so why change the password? Why even HAVE a password? When you’re out sick and someone needs something on your computer, don’t they call you at home anyway to get your password? Most people just write their password on a post-it note and stick it to the monitor! Talk about high security.
Sometimes people are so fed up entering passwords that they simply write PASSWORD as their password. If they really get adventurous, they might write password 1 as their password. Or Password with a capital P. But even this is hard to figure out if you’re just the common man. Sit in front of your friend’s computer and stare at that blinking password log-in space. Have any idea as to what they could possibly have as their password? Of course not! Even the best detectives can’t figure it out. You could probably do weeks of CSI-type character study break-downs and still not figure it out. And if you did figure out the name, like your friend the dog lover’s password is “doggybreath,” how would you know it’s not doggybreath7621, or doggybreath90210 or some other number variable? You could be there for months trying to log on.
We spend so much time making complicated passwords that by now we can probably just use 1234 as a password and it would be fine. How many hackers actually think to enter something so basic? I guess these computer bad guys have software that generates algorithms that breaks-down thousands of number and word combinations in seconds so 1234 may get them in your computer in about 3 seconds. And if they do, what are they getting? My credit card info? Someone charged an HD flat screen to my Visa once and I called it in to the credit card company to claim it wasn’t my charge. They removed the charges within seconds, but seemed completely disinterested in trying to track down the people who did it even though they had the address where the TV was shipped to! Well, if they don’t care if fraudulent charges are flying around, why should I? As long as I get my money back, I guess.
I have passwords for eBay, Paypal, my bank, insurance company, health providers, cell phone, iTunes, Amazon, Fresh Direct, Facebook, Twitter, my 401K, email, my website, sports websites and about 15 others. Hopefully I won’t forget the password to the iPhone App that holds all these passwords or I’d be seriously screwed.