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I “pass” on
passwords
Are a lot of people totally frustrated with the necessity and operation
of electronic device passwords? Could it just be me, or more likely a
function of my age?
I hate passwords. I used to dislike them, but it has gone well
beyond that stage now. It is a passionate hatred.
Today, you need a username and unique password to operate virtually
every gizmo that is closely related to what used to be known as a
computer.
If that is not enough, you are under constantly increasing pressure to
create ever-more complex passwords that you could never possibly
remember.
I laugh and cuss when I recall my first college experience with
computer operation over 45 years ago. The gigantic IBM System 360
covered probably one half acre, ten feet high, of
environmentally-controlled space. Back in the technological “dark
ages,” we wrote mathematical programs on a series of “IBM cards,” only
one command per card. You had to create each card on a keypunch
machine, and arranged them in a preordained sequence with
identification cards unique to the department or course you were
taking.
This was your password. Once you felt your program was written
correctly, and every card was placed in the proper sequence, you
delivered the stack to the computer center where technicians would
enter the programs into the massive computer.
If correctly written and arranged, and with no language or mathematical
errors, your program would produce an “output.” If not you would
receive an “error message.”
You could expect that your program’s output (or error message) would be
available for pickup in 12 to 24 hours. All that time you were hoping
and praying that everything was correct in your submission. If not, you
would be given back your cards with a couple of sheets of bad news—your
program did not run and you would probably miss the class deadline.
At that time, nobody could conceive of computers in their modern state.
To use the system you first had to be relatively fluent in a specific
computer language. I was taught “Fortran” which was (is) a scientific
language used primarily for mathematical calculations. There were other
languages used in business and other applications which I knew nothing
about.
Bill Gates changed all that years later with the use of little pictures
he called “icons.” Since then, my respect for computers has never been
the same.
About two years after I began using the computer, a breakthrough in
technology occurred as the university placed keyboard terminals at
various locations on campus. From a terminal you could login to the
main computer, compose and run a program, and receive your output. No
punch cards or delivery and pickup of your program! No nail-biting
hours, waiting to see if your program had even run! You now knew that
before you left the terminal.
This is where I was first introduced to the concept of a password.
These were specific to your class and the same word was issued to each
student to gain access to the computer via a remote terminal. The
purpose was not for security, but to keep non-authorized students from
using the system. You kept the password in your wallet or textbook,
since the concept of memorization had not yet evolved.
Back then, I could never have conceived that one day I would carry a
computer that would be many thousands (millions?) of times as powerful
as that half-acre giant, and it would resemble a plastic pop-tart. But
I also would never have believed that my greatest objection to it would
be the password.
I try very hard to minimize password use. No matter the program or
application, if a password is optional, I will not set it up. I have
nothing to hide or hoard, because I still firmly resist using the
machine for financial transactions.
The password that I first started using (when I absolutely had to) was
a unique compound word that I borrowed from the “Beavis and Butthead”
series. It worked very well, was relatively unique, and was something
that I could easily remember; until the latest tyranny of the password
czars.
Try as I may, I still cannot become accustomed to creating a password
that includes an upper-case letter, a number, a haiku, a gang sign, a
hieroglyph, and the blood of a virgin.
Yes, I know the internet is a dangerous place and there are bad people
out there who want my stuff. There have always been thieves. The
difference as it appears to me is that, only recently, we have been
content to store all our stuff at a location that is accessible to
everyone.
I would like to choose my own password and if I get hacked, let it be
my own fault—but not because you made me have to write the damn
password down just to reproduce it.
I’m probably wrong, being a dinosaur, but it seems that if passwords
must be so complex that everybody has to write them down; that should
be a much bigger security flaw than picking your own simpler word.
People “in the know” tell me that they use password “apps” to create
highly complex, unbreakable, passwords. Whenever I hear this, I recall
the undecipherable Enigma machine used by Hitler in WWII.
Others tell me they keep all their passwords on a spreadsheet in their
home or office computer. Pardon my ignorance, but this would seem to
create a single point of risk, or a situation where finding one
password would get you all of them.
So I will beat on, a boat against the current, borne back ceaselessly
into the past.
I know nothing about, and cannot use an ATM machine, internet banking,
or online bill-paying. But as long as there are personal checks, a Post
Office, bank tellers, and other humans with whom I can have phone or
personal conversations for transactions, I may be able to live out the
rest of my days.
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