esrosedotblog

I went through my "codes and passwords" file yesterday and eliminated more than half the content.

It was a walk down memory lane for some of it.

Old passwords to the papers that I used to get on before they had a paywall. The Boston Globe, LATimes and even the local paper no longer open their doors without a price of admission. This is changing times forward, a taste of the future for all print.

Then there are some in which the trend has turned the other way. For example, old passwords, maybe ten revisions, for my repeated difficulties with TimeWarner Cable who has a constant meltdown of its on-line service which is not service at all but torture. Fortunately they answer the phone quickly and wonders upon wonders there is an actual office nearby where I can walk in and talk to a real person who is always nice to me and competent. I would be happy with either one and both is a real pleasure, worth going into the place. The same with ATT which I still cannot rouse on the internet. Only three revisions of my password here just to avoid the drop down warnings that the one I used is no good. I go to the great guys at the local ATT store. They are also lookers which makes it even more pleasant.

Then there are the passwords to things I do not even remember. Carbonite, a security system that was one of those things you paid for but never actually got tested because having a mac there were no viruses. Also some passwords to other services, aggregators, news sources. None lasted long. Attempts to monetize them failed and now they are "This Space Available".

I had passwords for many things like retailers where I only bought one thing. Never went back.

And so on.

My cyber history for all of four years in a vaporizing trail, now vanished as I hit the delete button for over 15 passwords. I stopped counting.

I should probably not say that every one of those passwords were pretty much the same.

I swallow all the warnings with a grain of salt.

A lot of what they are worried about seems to be bullshit to me. A breach of my confidentiality is usually a gross thing like wallet theft or, if they appropriate my web records, the length and complexity of my password is irrelevant. They have it, simple or not.

Dumb stuff. My bank, Wells Fargo, decided to make people have "more secure" passwords. So they ramped the minimum letters up to 8 from six. Yet, at their ATMs where the actual money is, there is still a 4 digit pass which is called a p i n and that is it. Of course they do need my card but still.

My investment guys, Smith Barney, had gone to a system which needed at least one cap, a minimum of two letters, and something else I do not remember. There was a huge mess getting it all started. Then they got absorbed by Morgan Stanley and MS in turn went to a simple but 8 digit minimum requirement. No sense, three years later, defying the trend and making it simpler. They even gave me a live MIS guy on the phone to walk me through the new web site. He laughed when I noted the incongruity and allowed as how none of it made much difference. If they had your pass they had it whether it was four or eight or what.

Of course part of it is that only YOU know what the password is, ostensibly, and it is the mysterious ingredient unless you are really dumb enough to use 2012's dumbest.

Ours is not too complicated actually. It is just our date of meeting but not really as it is off one year and it also has letters which are initials but only in the order of how they actually appear.

One of my sons who needed to get into a website worked his way in by simple guessing. Of course he had to know us a little bit. The year and all. If I need to come up with an 8 digit figure then I just add my birth year.

Now everyone who reads this has some clues. But you don't know my usernames which, in many cases, are as hard to get as any part of it.

For many sites unless there is a credit card and many even where there is, the user name can be any name which you choose to plug in. I have used PaulNewman as well as some others as a homage. No longer as he is dead and I don't want to make it too hard for the hacker.

I went from about thirty passwords down to ten. Not everyone is on there. The money ones are not on anything but a hard copy sheet of paper on the back of a cabinet drawer here. Funny, huh? As secure as a new puppy in the middle of a highway.

Labels: internet, security