What's My Password? Don't Ask Me!

Remember when Password was a beloved game show first hosted by Allen Ludden?  Two teams made up of a contestant and a celebrity competed against each other, and the object was to get your teammate to guess the "password" using just one word as a clue.  In the past, passwords were also verbal words or phrases that allowed you entry into the neighborhood clubhouse or the local speakeasy.

Ah, those were the days!

Nowadays you need 16 or 17 passwords just to get through your day, in order to connect to the electronics to which we are now tethered. Passwords are recommended just to access your smartphone or computer and required for just about anything online, including your personal e-mail accounts.

I was game at first. I realized that passwords were there for my own good - providing security against those nefarious hackers out there whose purpose in life is to screw up ours. I struggle to understand their motivation. Some of them are just modern day cyber-thugs out to steal your identity and your money.  But more often than not they are just out to crash our computers with viruses and mess with our heads for the sport of it.  They do it because they can.  

The computer powers-that-be always warned us against using obvious passwords like your name or birthday or "1234" or "ABCD."  So I came up with a password that was meaningful only to me, and used it on every account.

Now that is no longer sufficient.  It is recommended that you use different passwords for every account, and it is especially important that you not use the same passwords that you use for your e-mail account anywhere else.  It is advisable that you periodically change your passwords on any given account, and actually required by some programs.  Some online entities now require passwords with particular requirements like "Your password must contain no less than 6 and no more 8 characters, and must include at least one of each of the following: a letter, a numeral, both uppercase and lower characters and a symbol."

Just to add to the fun, some sites now require you to take a test in order to gain access. These "CAPTCHA" (which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) require you to type in a word or series of characters that appear in a distorted fashion that cannot be read by computers.  I'm not sure what it says about me that sometimes these distorted characters cannot be read by me either.

Yes, it's all gotten too complicated for me, I'm afraid.  I have simply run out of meaningful-only-to-me number-letter-symbol combinations to use as passwords. I confess that occasionally I will stare for several seconds at a log-in screen that I use on a daily basis to recall which of my many passwords will gain me the precious access I seek. And forget about trying to remember the passwords I use infrequently.  When I'm in a more philosophical mood, I like to ponder the great mystery of it all -namely, if I can't remember my passwords, how can hackers and computers figure out what they are?

Mr. Rip in his infinite wisdom has solved this problem by using one of those programs where you can store passwords (there really is an app for everything).   I may do the same thing some day, but first I would have to come up with another new and unique password just to get into the password keeper program.