The Trials and Tribulations of Online Passwords
Somewhere in my brain, possibly between the bit that can remember some basic GCSE French (où est le jambon s’il vous plaît?) and that awful memory of the time a waiter told me to enjoy my food and I replied “You too”, is a part where my online passwords are stored. They sit there nice and safe and snug, ready to access whenever I need them.
Online password security is generally, well, secure. Which is as it should be. However, if you’ve got the password for whatever you’re trying to access then the actual sign-in process should be simple though, right? Wrong.
Take online banking for example. You need a password to access your account, obviously. They don’t want all of your password though. Oh no. They just want the 3rd, 7th and 9th characters, which basically makes it impossible to sign in without having to use your fingers to work it out, so you look like a small child who is just learning how to do sums.
There are apps that exist that let you safely store your passwords but I like to consider myself reasonably intelligent enough that I don’t need an app to help me remember things. Though when I’ve literally just opened a tab on my computer and can’t recall what the hell it was I wanted to Google (the modern day equivalent of walking into a room and not remembering what you went in there for) I wonder if maybe I do need a little help after all.
However, if you do happen to forget an online password it’s not a problem though. It’s easy to just change it. Well, easy if you’re some sort of wizard with a computer or, even better, an actual wizard. Again, I appreciate that all of the security is in place to protect us, but I’m convinced half of it is in place simply to just try and wind us up as much as is humanly possible.
First though you have to get through a series of security questions to identify yourself.
“What was the name of your first pet?”
“What was your mother’s maiden name?”
At this point I usually start to wonder if I’m actually being helped or if they are just trying to find out my porn name.
You get through the first couple of questions ok, then there’s one more question to go until you reach the next stage of changing your password. No problem.
“What was the name of the brother of the owner of the cat in the favourite book of your childhood best friend’s mother’s next door neighbour?”
You finally make it through that part of the process, after a small bout of swearing, and now you can actually change your password. Or so you think. There’s usually a few necessary requirements you must adhere to first.
Your new password must contain:
A lower case letter
A special character
A number
A Swahilian lullaby
A lock of a mermaid’s hair
A sonnet from Shakespeare
3 hieroglyphics
Your first born child’s soul
7 emojis
6 drops of unicorn blood
An eagle’s talon
An uppercase letter
You also have to ensure that your password is deemed secure enough.
[New password needed]
nobodylovesme
[Your password is too insecure]
And your new password won’t be accepted if it’s not considered to be strong enough.
[INSERT NEW PASSWORD]
F0rTn1ghT
[Your password is two week]
You finally make it through all of the stages. It’s like you’ve completed some sort of epic quest. An epic quest that contained vast amounts of swearing and a smidgen of sobbing. But now the deed is done and you can sit back and breathe a sigh of relief. That is until the next time you try to log-in.
[Your password is incorrect]
[You have reached your maximum amount of attempts at entering your password]
[You must reset your password]
[BANGS HEAD AGAINST KEYBOARD IN FRUSTRATION]
[Your password can not be one you have used previously]
ARGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!