Health & Fitness
pass*WoRD_s
When signing in to an online account have you ever had to check the little box that says "Forgot your ID or password?" Don't worry, you are not alone.
It seems you need a password for everything these days and I'm getting pretty tired of having to remember all of mine.
We are advised to create a basic model that's easy to remember but difficult for others to figure out. Those two things may seem mutually exclusive, but I’m sure the password gurus know what they're talking about. To make your password more secure, they suggest using a combination of dashes, symbols, upper and lowercase letters, and numbers.
As I created a new password on one site, they rated the strength of each version. When I typed in the minimum six characters on my first attempt, I was not surprised that its strength was determined to be WEAK. I added two numbers and was relieved to see that its strength had changed to MODERATE. Although I felt better, I thought to myself, "What kind of underachiever would be satisfied with a MODERATE rating?" I changed some letters from upper to lower case and added another symbol. Incredibly, it was still classified as MODERATE! I felt as if I were back in school taking the SAT. My secure enrollment on the website depended upon the strength of this password! I finally pulled out all the stops. Using upper and lower case letters, numbers, and dashes I triumphantly earned a STRONG rating. Unfortunately, I had been so caught up in the creative process that I hadn't written down the 13 character password and had forgotten it!
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What a dilemma. The more secure the password, the harder it was to remember. Furthermore, even if I had thought to write it down, would I really want to be encumbered by this albatross every time I needed to access that account? I don't even remember what site it was for, but I finally decided it wasn't worth the trouble.
The subsequent problem is how to keep track of our passwords. We're told to write them down in a "safe place", but for me, the most convenient place, near the computer, is also the least safe. Ironically, no one in my family cares about my feedback profile on Etsy or what impulse purchase I just made on Amazon; and the tech support person from Ebay can access most of my information from out in cyberspace, so why am I bothering to hide my passwords at all?
