And the Password is …

In this age of the Internet, I have more passwords then I can possibly remember. Six pages to be precise. Many of the new accounts came with the publication of my debut novel, The Intersect. Goodreads, Kindle, Apple ibooks and WordPress—to name but a few. The rest are what I refer to as passwords for living. Amazon, American Airlines, Southwest, Safeway, Culligan, Netflix, countless hotel chains and travel sites. The list has exploded. It seems you can’t do anything today without the Internet and creating a password.

Mix it up

I’ve taken the advice of the tech industry and changed it up when creating my passwords. It makes sense that no two accounts should ever have the same one. If they hack into your bank, you certainly don’t want them to have access to your electronic medical record. Though if they hack into your bank account, who really cares if they know you were at the doctor twice in April due to a nagging case of bronchitis? I’d prefer they just not touch my money. Cough be damned, I’m funny that way.

Creating a password

We’ve been told to avoid names or birth dates and to combine numbers and letters along with symbols ($#&!) to the string. The days of using a simple 123456 are over. Phrases aren’t a bad idea, but then, you have to be able to remember them. Any chance of a simple, easy to remember password, has been shot to hell. Check out this video and you’ll never do a simple password again. http://bit.ly/2uqPHM8

Ignorance is no excuse

There are fee-based password management services ready to coordinate all of this for you. Of course, they require that you create a master password. That made me laugh. And I know I should have more confidence, but with so many places being hacked—why wouldn’t a company that secures passwords be a prime target?

Creativity

So, I continue to add passwords to my handwritten sheet, and in an odd way, it’s become an exercise in creativity. When I look through my passwords, it’s like scanning a twisted version of my coded life. So let those thieves try to figure out my passwords. I dare them. Do I add a $ or a % sign? Two numbers or twenty? I’ll never tell.