I used to fear teenagers. That’s when I was seven. And again through my late 30s and all of my 40s.
I’m terrified of sharks and even though I refuse to swim in the ocean, I would not put it past one to show up in a lake or a pool. But something new is haunting me lately. When I sign up for something on the internet, I have to come up with a password.
That’s not even the scary part. It has to be eight characters or longer and must include at least one number and one special character such as $ or # or & or *. Put those special characters together and I think I’m swearing.
Oh, and while using some bizarre combination of letters, numbers and symbols, your password also has to be memorable while also impossible to guess. So basically, what these websites and apps are telling us is that it is impossible, not difficult, but impossible, to create a usable password that’s strong enough to protect your account. Your password shouldn’t be your dog’s name or your birthday or phone number or anything else that you might have a shot at remembering.
I recently tried creating a tricky password that was a common word that I might remember, but with some letters replaced with symbols and numbers. You could use something like r0!leRco@ster. Hey! We can remember the word ROLLERCOASTER but the numbers, symbols and capital letters make it impossible to crack.
In theory. But try remembering which letters you switched up a few days or weeks after creating the password. I’ve done it.
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