Password dependence
Every year a press release explains what the most common computer passwords are and in doing so attempts to persuade us all to update them. The constant world of passwords and memorable places, for many, means that you have to come up with a brilliant formula of your own.
The most common passwords are still 123456 or anything along those lines. Who would be mad enough to choose that as a password?
Slightly more interesting was the data suggesting the most common passwords for certain websites. For example, the most common password for Facebook is… wait for it … it’s Facebook.
The most common password for Twitter is… yes, you’ve got it, Twitter. Throw in an exclamation mark at the end for some security spice.
The challenge for me is the passwords that I created years ago and at the time thought, ‘I’ll never forget that’. Within about an hour I’d forgotten it.
I had a great example of that this week. With all the adjustments with Freeview on the telly, my TV suggested that I go for an auto-retune. Get all the channels in the right place. Make sure the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) is all up together.
I decided to re-tune and that’s when it happened. The telly decided that in order to carry out this simple task I would need a fourdigit, numerical password.
I couldn’t reverse out of this stage. Password or bust. I have no recollection of ever setting a password but the TV is well over ten years old.
I struggle to remember what I did this morning. I was locked out of the telly. I started to input every PIN number, the birthday of note, previous and current house numbers, and combinations of all of those.
Nothing. At first, it was a challenge. When we realised there was not going to be TV watching for the day, irritation spread around the family camp.
There was a mild panic that we may have to talk to each other, worse still read a book, or worse still a family game. The threat of this seemed to spur everyone on to keep having a go at the password.
It was like a digital sword stuck in a digital stone, waiting for King Arthur. Although everyone is equipped with smartphones the telly still has a key role for proper evening entertainment, streaming or otherwise.
Everyone in the house started making suggestions which was a heady cocktail of helpful and very annoying.
I mentioned the issue on my radio show and one of my friends heard and WhatsApped me the suggestion of trying all the zeros. Of course, I had tried all the zeros, that’s entry-level stuff. That’s the starting point for most combination guesswork.
What was the number that I would have seen fit to choose all those years ago? I’m by no means the first to lock myself out of screens.
There’s a wealth of brilliant stories about people locked out of hard drives. My favourite is the fella in America who claims to have a million quids’ worth of cryptocurrency on his hard drive and he has two attempts left for entering passwords and then after that, it auto deletes as a security function.
That’s the kind of pressure that helps you remember your children’s birthdays. After twentyfour hours of mental anguish, I managed to release the telly back into family control. It was 9999. Why I chose that I’ve no idea.
The TV asked me if I wanted to change the PIN. I declined. I’ll definitely remember it now.