I c4n’t r3m3mb3r my p455word5 either
Steve Safran October 18th, 2006
My co-worker Allison can always tell when I’m having a hard time remembering which of my passwords goes with which site. I slowly get more agitated as I type different combinations of the three or four words I typically use. The thing is, I don’t really care if someone knows my password to NYTimes.com or any other news site. And different sites have different rules about how long and sophisticated your password needs to be. People are giving up. One in three workers write down their passwords, nearly defeating the point. “This is really a lot like mom and dad buying a great new security system for the house and junior leaving the combination under the door mat,” David O’Connell, senior analyst at Nucleus Research, told Reuters.
23 Comments Add your own
1. Ed | October 18th, 2006 at 6:54 am
For web stuff, I have 3 passwords.
One is for stuff I don’t care about, such as the NYT, etc. where there’s no security issue at all.
One is for mildly secure stuff, such as shopping sites subscription services, etc.
And finally, one is for secure stuff, such as shopping sites, etc.
My problem right now is usernames. The username that I’ve been using for about 14 years seems to come up “used” a lot lately. Very annoying.
2. Ed | October 18th, 2006 at 6:55 am
Oops, the 3rd password should say “shopping sites where they keep credit card info”..
3. Treehouse | October 18th, 2006 at 6:58 am
If you get a Mac (obviously the ones with Mac OS X), the OS will offer to remember the password for most websites. Even Yahoo, which has been notorious for its crappy login system.
So, when I go to a login page, I usually have the password already filled in for me, if I have previously been to that login page.
Visit a Mac forum or Apple Store or ….., for more info.
4. Swift Loris | October 18th, 2006 at 7:01 am
Uh, guys, there are some very nice apps to manage your passwords and encrypt them on your hard disk. When you need a new password, they’ll put one together for you that’s close to impossible to “guess,” even with sophisticated programs.
RoboForm is one such password manager. It also fills in online forms for you.
I use a different password for every site.
5. Swift Loris | October 18th, 2006 at 7:03 am
“If you get a Mac (obviously the ones with Mac OS X), the OS will offer to remember the password for most websites.”
Sheesh, Windows will do that for you as well.
6. G Man | October 18th, 2006 at 8:20 am
But having your computer remember your password is like putting phone numbers in your speed dial…once they are in the phone, they are out of your head. Then what do you do if you need the number and the phone isn’t handy? What do you do if you are on a different computer and need the password that was saved to your computer?
7. andy Beach | October 18th, 2006 at 9:40 am
i had so many passwords long before there were password manager apps, that i had to devise my own thing - an excel sheet. Until about 2000, I kept all my various usernames and passwords in a (surprise) password protected excel sheet which i typically have stored on my laptop and some type of web server (used to be my ftp folder, now its my mac.com webdav folder). It is by no means up to date anymore, which is my own fault, but mostly it is because everything is stored in OS X’s default password manager or in my SOHO notes app (which syncs to both dotmac and my backup hard drive).
8. WiggyWack | October 18th, 2006 at 12:21 pm
“This is really a lot like mom and dad buying a great new security system for the house and junior leaving the combination under the door mat,”
No it’s not. Because my passwords are to keep my computer/account safe from intruders REMOTELY, not locally.
I’m not worried about my Windows password protecting my work computer from my coworkers because they could just yank the hard drive or physically steal the computer.
9. StuDogg | October 18th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Talk about timely…
In preparing for elex coverage, today we had to sift through hard copy archives for a password we generated for a broadcast partner almost four years ago, because no one could remember it anymore.
We should’ve just reset the creds and hassled the business partner to update their automated content delivery systems, but eventually the lost data was discovered.
Store creds offline, somewhere safe. And try to change often, despite the pain and suffering inflicted. Better the headache of a changing password than the paralysis caused by a lost one.
10. Swift Loris | October 18th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
“What do you do if you are on a different computer and need the password that was saved to your computer?”
There are password management apps that you can put on a thumb drive (encryption and all) and run off the USB port of any computer.
11. Safran | October 18th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Which, of course, everyone carries around with them…
Of course there are techhie answers to techhie problems. But that’s the point. Most people aren’t techhie. They just want to read something online, check their email or login at work.
And they don’t want to have to remember three different rotating passwords that must include at least one number but cannot.contain the same word as the previous password or your name or your dog or …
12. Tim | October 18th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
Try a USB-based fingerprint reader.. can’t remember the brand we tried at work but Microsoft makes one. Most remember patterns for various sites, prompt you when a password is asked for, you put your finger on the device, and it then supplies the password if your fingerprint is right.
Some, I believe, store the passwords in the device, not on the local PC, making them portable to plug-and-play PCs
13. Swift Loris | October 18th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
“Which, of course, everyone carries around with them…”
Er, another name for thumb drives is “keychain drives.” They were made to be carried around with you.
“Of course there are techhie answers to techhie problems. But that’s the point. Most people aren’t techhie. They just want to read something online, check their email or login at work.”
I ain’t no tecchie, far from it. If remembering passwords is a problem for you, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a tecchie or not, you need a solution. A password manager, on your hard drive and/or on a thumb drive you carry around with you, is a relatively simple solution you don’t have to be a tecchie to use.
14. Living in Italy | October 19th, 2006 at 12:40 am
My bank in Italy requires one password for logging in and just reading information, another for actual money-moving activity. Both have to be changed periodically. So of course recently when I needed to do a wire payment, I could get into the account and set it all up, but couldn’t remember the special super safe activity password. Nor was there any option to reset and have it emailed or anything.
I called customer service. The only solution was to go to a bank branch and have a new PIN issued so I could start all over and reset both passwords. Needless to say, if I’d wanted to go to the bank, I could have simply done my wire transfer there in the first place!
I complained to the customer service lady that there had to be an easier way (which there is, thank god, with my US bank). “We just tell people to set the two passwords the same.”
I could not, at that moment, figure out how to translate into Italian “defeats the whole purpose…”
15. thedetroitchannel | October 19th, 2006 at 6:13 am
i believe the word you were searching for was “france”.
that means DEFEAT in any language.
16. John | October 19th, 2006 at 9:54 am
If you ever see me creepin’ around the Upper East Side with my dark blue Puma bag over my left shoulder, kick my dumbass and take the bag. It has all the passwords you’ll need to set my life back five years. I need to be much smarter about this myself.
Sincerely,
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