Paradigm shift needed #1: passwords
I had a new computer installed in my home office. I called my regular computer guy to install it, along with a printer and some software. I met him at the house to let him in and hung around to watch.
“We need a password…” he said.
“How about ‘Rich?'”
“It should be at least eight characters.”
“Okay, how about ‘RichardG?'”
“It really should be something less obvious, to keep people from breaking in…”
So it went. We needed passwords to log into this function and that program. Three passwords and one user names, alone, just to link my home computer and my business office computer. By the time he left I had a notepad sheet filled with passwords and user names for all the different technical maneuvers I might wish to make during the course of a day. Thanks to passwords, no one will be able to access my documents or system. Including me. Unless I have my notepad list.
Hackers are to computer users what terrorists are to air travelers. We should be able to carry anything onto a jet, write anything on our computer, and not worry about security issues. The concept of a “password” barely existed a generation ago. Now it’s involved in more daily transactions than not. The need to keep bad guys out has enslaved the good guys.
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Counter Intelligence 
January 27, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Another astounding thought is that Telestar-remember Telestar? the first communication sattelite?-went up when we were in High School. All the phone lines were copper conductors. Now for you to use all your passwords to send something you wrote from your home to your office It all has to be digitalized on your computer, sent through a Modem through a copper conductor down the road, maybe even as far away as your office. Then go through another electronic set of wizzardry to be sent through the air to a communication sattelite in orbit over the earth. The sattelite re-broadcasts it to another set of big computerised wizzardry on earth near your office. It’s changed back to a signal that goes over your copper conductors by your office, through a Modem, and into your office computer. At the speed of light. And a hacker has all that distance to catch you in, and is just as fast.
January 27, 2009 at 10:03 pm
I know I’m no techie-whiz but my favorite password is still from Woodstock, backstage.
PW? “I forgot.”
February 1, 2010 at 11:42 pm
I knew a bunch of guys who opened a bar and the corp. name was It Really Doesn’t Matter! Not a bad PW either.