Who goes there?

In the book of Judges, the Gileadites asked strangers to say “Shibboleth” to determine if they were friend or foe. The password’s test was in the pronunciation, not in the memory. If only things were still so simple. Today it would have to be $hibbo1eth to satisfy modern companies’ insistence on capital letters, numbers and “special characters”. The quest to improve security is a noble one, although it seems barely to have dented online fraud, and the main side-effect has been a proliferation of passwords that are longer and harder to remember. Microsoft says it is heading for a “password-less future”, allowing users to use facial recognition or their fingerprints instead. Doubtless the new system will contain its own deficiencies, but it will be welcomed by anyone who’d forget their head if it wasn’t screwed on.