Apocalypse Monthly – April 2013 Edition (The Password)

I am old enough to remember the world before the socially impersonal personal computer.  It was a sane world where the only password  needed was the one that gained you access to the guy’s doubly secret tree house (Soon to be the Man Club).  I think “Hate Girls” was the password that we used.  Once in, we looked at Playboy centerfolds that one of the members stole from their dad’s car.  Whoa, that’s not a girl, what is that?  We were doomed from that moment on, because everywhere we went we looked for bunnies in the real world.  They just don’t exist.  But I digress.

Fast forward 40 years and now you have so many applications, excuse me, we have so many apps, that we can’t remember the passwords to them.  You can’t use “Hate Girls” because it’s not very secure and Siri would file a hate crime charge against you.  Even PC’s have become PC.  Oh no, we have to add all kinds of things to our passwords, like three levels of our past history, such as our dog’s name, or the name of the first gross girl you kissed.

Wendy Wobble Wips was her name – how the heck  could anyone forget her! I still have nightmares about that girl.  It’s  a miracle I’m married with children. Kissing her reminded me of being in a car wash. She became a full lip and facial masseuse.  But I digress again.

Then you start to run out of passwords, because you can’t use the same combo or near combo as the past 1,000,000 you just used.  So you look around the room or out the window for clues to your next password that no one can possibly hack.  Here’s a few from today’s password changes:

1. BellyButtonLint2013
2. DustBunny4321BlastOff
3. WindyWendyWhipsWundabaWafflesWithWobbleWips!Q12TuvvWTH
4. 1DeadDriedSpider
5. SquirrelsPlayingWithNuts007
6. SuxNextMensPurseCapris2

And this was just the password crap I had to go through to log into QuickBooks.  What the hell is so Quick about that?  Then my bank wants me to provide a picture that only I will know is my own.  So I provided the photo of Wendy above.  At least my brain will be shocked and possibly knocked back into password retrieval.

I was a consultant during Y2K, I ran test of people’s computers to determine if rolling over to “00” would reset history and kill current time and data. I was somewhat scared of being thrown back into the age of disco. I recall the doomsday press releases: nuclear annihilation, overrunning sewers, yada, yada.  Nothing happen.  I think someone farted and a few people died, but certainly no apocalypse.  Then the Mayan fart came along and yet again, nothing happened.  But I tell you, we are on an unsustainable app password course that will have dire consequences.  Well at least for this month, then I’ll have to reset the passwords to my other 150 applications, excuse me, apps.

Finally, I am reminded of the movie Network, where the guy rants and raves to tell people to run to their windows and scream to the world, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” I imagine we are all carrying our computers, tablets and iSmarty phones and hurl them to their silicone deaths, with Siri screaming to the bitter concrete apocalyptic end, when we see the dawn of a new day and NewDayDawn04142013 becomes our password. For tomorrow it becomes WTF-IOWE-IRS-04152013.

What’s the most annoying app security you’ve witnessed?  Come on, share something here.  I won’t SPAM you – much.