Western Morning News (Saturday)
My passwords are impossible... even for me!
IRECKON I’m the only person who could have completely foxed Alan Turing. The brilliant World War Two code-breaker would have met his match with me. In fact, had I been his project, I doubt the man would ever have become famous.
As I write this, I’m completely foxing myself. Everything, but everything, needs a password these days. Such is my paranoia that I rarely save them online for fear that someone might be interested, say, in what I looked at on a shop website five years ago. So, I create my own on the spur of the moment, knowing that I wouldn’t, couldn’t, possibly forget. Then I’ll write it on a Post-it in shorthand and stick it on my computer screen.
In time, it’s transferred to a battered sheaf of A4 papers containing passwords for everything from cat biscuits to Premium Bonds. Some are in shorthand, some are now barely legible because they’re on the crease of the paper where it’s folded to fit inside an old tin. Some are obsolete, some are so old that they’ve faded.
Passwords are infectious. They spread from every blessed thing you buy. I have no idea of what the third and seventh category of my house insurance password is, and the prompt ‘best holiday location’ is absolutely no use. Um, well, let me think… Was it that small town in Oregon, that village in Cornwall, or where we saw friends in New Zealand? God knows. And if I ever get to the pearly gates, He’ll need to, because no doubt I’ll have to have a password to get in there.
The reassuring thing is that even though I can’t remember half my passwords or decipher what they’re supposed to be (I don’t trust ‘safe’ online programmes), at least they’re quirky. And I have the satisfaction of knowing that some snidey little geek sitting in a darkened room in some part of the world trying to access my accounts will have his work cut out.
Apparently, over a third of us use the same password on every single website. That’s no fun. Think of the hours of frustration you could be missing out on, the cussing when you get that “you have had three attempts and your time has now elapsed” message.
Instead, you’re making it easy for the hackers of this world by being unimaginative – abc123 and 123456 are up there as popular ones.
I may mock those of few creative juices, but Stefan Thomas, a German-born programmer in Silicon Valley, would be on your side. He has a Bitcoin account that over 10 years has become worth £200 million. Trouble is, he’s forgotten the password and has only two attempts left.
Now maybe he should have saved his details online.
Thomas claims he’s calm about the situation. Yeah, right. Looking for my Premium Bond code when I thought I’d won millions was worse than being in a Mastermind final – though I’m sure the £25 I got will come in useful.
When our eldest son, then 18, took off to Nepal to travel for a year, he forgot to take a credit card. There was no way we could send it safely. Eventually (and don’t try this at home) I got on to the British ambassador in Nepal and asked if I could put the card in the diplomatic bag leaving London. He spluttered and said that they didn’t run a postal service for itinerate travellers etc etc. I pointed out that it might prove to be more work for the staff if said son landed up in difficulties, and he eventually relented.
The card duly arrived in Nepal. Eldest boy sat, breathing a sigh of relief, on the steps of the embassy with his pal. His relief didn’t last long. Hubs had sent the access number to the card in code, with very cryptic clues as to what the numbers might be.
The clues were couched in the sort of questions that feature on ‘Round Britain Quiz’: “If George ate four green apples in Turkey what was his mother’s name?” That sort of thing. It took the two boys six hours to crack the code. The upside is that he didn’t lose the card in the entire year.
Passwords and codes have been going on for centuries. For over 700 years, the Ceremony of the Keys has taken place every night at The Tower of London. Open to just a few members of the public, you can apply to experience this wonderful insight into one of Britain’s oldest buildings.
At about 9.53pm the gates of the tower shut, locking in the hushed group. Standing by Traitors’ Gate watching soldiers march past, their boots crunching on ancient cobbles, rifles clamped to their shoulders as a bugler plays the Last Post, is a hairraising experience. Then a Beefeater shouts: “Halt, who goes there?” And the response is: “The keys, the Queen’s keys”, and a password, which has been changed every night since the tower was built, is handed over.
I’d love to know the ones they’ve used. I bet they don’t keep them on a bit of paper in a toffee tin.
Some geek in a darkened room trying to access my accounts will have his work cut out