Some of us stick to a single password that we use everywhere–whether it’s a pet’s name, a memorable date or the make of our monitor.
Some of have thrust upon us by (rightly) paranoid system admins very safe, very convoluted passwords that we promptly write down on a post-it note and stick to our monitors. A few very peculiar souls actually make up their own very safe, very convoluted passwords (over eight characters with non-alpha characters please) that they actually remember them, but I’m not convinced that these people actually exist.
Passwords have an uncommon ability to draw out from the most successful, sensible and intelligent individual, an idle Neanderthal with the memory of a lobotomized goldfish. They make us stupid, but we should all by now have come to expect and accept that.
There are some pretty simple lessons to be learnt here: that you should always e-mail passwords back to account holders, and never display them onscreen; that you should use a fixed list of password prompts and never, under any circumstances, let users make up their own password prompt questions.
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