What Pisses Me Off: Codes and passwords!

What really pisses me off is the over-abundance of codes, passwords, user names and numerous other forms of identification we have to live with on the internet. Now, I’’d be the first to admit that some efficient form of security is necessary, especially when dealing with your bank, financial institution or other private business, but for goodness sake do they need all the layers of security they subject us to? This applies especially when dealing with some retailer, or your weekly astrological reading, or a news site. I mean do they really need all those codes etc., that they force us to use?

Half the time, when you do submit and give them the information they require, they won’’t accept it the next time you call them up on your screen. They seem to get completely confused between email addresses, passwords and user names and won’t accept the details you so carefully saved when you first opened a subscription to the site! What they asked for as a security code becomes the password when you try to get back in, and your user name is now your security code etc, it all just goes around in circles!

Another dreadful snag is the fact that every web site (and you may have as many as 50 or more stored), wants the information in a different form; some want nothing less than six letters, some want six letters plus two numbers and at least three of the letters chosen have to be in upper case, while some even want you to include specific punctuation marks in their information soup, as well.

The worst thing of all is that they tell you, you shouldn’’t write these passwords or codes down anywhere, for fear of some thug finding them and using them against you. Now I ask you –if you have, let’’s say 50 web sites listed, and they all want a password, a security code and a user name, that could be as many as 150 different items of information you have to store in your head, also remembering which ones belong to which sites. Impossible, obviously!

Luckily some codes etc. can be standard for several different sites, but you feel you don’’t want to take that too far because if someone does get to know what they are, well, the whole of your stuff is laid out before them. I’’ve done what I imagine many other computer freaks like me do: I have a sheet of paper pinned up beside my computer with all the sites I communicate listed, with their codes. But I don’’t write the codes in full;– I use about 12 of them spread over the sites I use, and I have my own abbreviation for each code and password. For instance, if my email address is relevant, I just put ‘email’ and I know the rest. I use an English number familiar to me similar to kd345678e (this one is made up, I’’m pissed off but not stupid!), and all I have to put on the sheet is ‘kd’, again I know the rest.

At the end of the day, someone has to come up with some simpler system of protecting our information, or we’re all going to finish up in some secure facility, where we mutter codes to each other all day long, and shout “Invalid Password” or “Re-enter Security Code”, every 10 minutes or so. I’’m very close to that right now, so PLEASE HELP ME! (Sorry, that is an invalid password!)

Tell us below, are you pissed off and fed up with putting in so many passwords? How do you keep a track of all of your passwords?