Passwords

How safe is your password? Most probably not that safe.

How old is your password? You're most probably using the same password which you started the particular account with.

At the place I'm working at the moment, there are plenty of login codes and each login requires a different password. It's not compulsory to have different passwords, but you'll see why later. Not only that, one login might be known by two or three different names.

You might not get your logins at the same time thus making the creation of the passwords at different times. For example, if you get one login now, you've attached password 1. Two months down the track, you receive another login and you're thinking you should assign the same password, but password 1 will expire in 1 month and you're out of sync already. That's just dealing with 2 logins.

Anyways, to make matters more complicated than they already are, the most interesting password instructions which I've come across is the following. It's supposed to be extremely secure (I'm sure it is, because you might not remember it either!).

1. Your password must be between 8 to 12 characters long (That's actually a good thing. My insane hubby does 16-20 characters with the same rules! OMG, I hear you scream? You'll have to forgive him, he's a little insane.)

2. Your password must contain at least one capital letter (People usually capitalise the first letter)

3. Your password must contain at least one number (People usually make the last character a number)

4. Your password must contain at least one symbol (WHAT??? Symbols? But it won't make sense if I put a symbol in my password seeing that passwords are usually a word or two, unlike my insane hubby who showed me his list of passwords once and it was just lines of gibberish! Imagine trying to remember U3&j%Dne%6%Ff4y9*i as a password!)

5. Your password will expire every 90 days (Goodness gracious me!!! I'll have to come up with another one after 90 days... have no fear, I'll just change one character)

6. You are not allowed to reuse the last 16 passwords (FOR REAL?!?!?!)

7. More than half the characters in your new password must be different from your previous ones (WHAT????? I need to write this down...)

So, you've either created a page in your notebook filled with logins and passwords or a password protected excel or word doc. The only thing with the excel and word doc, although the password doesn't expire, once you don't remember it, you'll never be able to open it!!!

*sigh* Life before computers was so much simpler, wasn't it?