23. What’s going on?
“If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don’t understand the problems and you don’t understand the technology.” – Bruce Schneier
Quiz shows aired on the tube decades ago, maybe some as early as the late 1930s in England and the United States. They’ve delighted people for years as shown by the longevity of Jeopardy and The Wheel of Fortune. Jeopardy debuted in March 1964 and was on during the day and at night with a few revisions. The latter had changes too and has been on for about 40 years. It’s also known as Wheel and you can’t argue with the fact that the wheel was a great invention.
The names of past and present quiz shows include The $20,000 Pyramid, Beat the Clock, The Price is Right, Concentration, the G. E. College Bowl, Name that Tune and What’s My Line? I’ll stop there since the list doesn’t seem to end. Do a web search. I don’t watch many of these shows but I did like the Hollywood Squares, the $1.98 Beauty Show and the Gong Show. They were great spoofs with loads of laughs. I’m not sure if quiz shows have become more sophisticated, but they’re still on TV. When I tune in occasionally to Jeopardy, some of the questions – or is it answers – are so simple, while others Einstein couldn’t be right on. I believe there are quiz show channels, but can’t be sure since I only have basic cable.
Some memorable and widely viewed quiz shows came on in the 1950s. Three big ones were Twenty One, The $64,000 Dollar Question and Dotto, but each was tainted. They cheated even back then and many smart contestants were discriminated because of their looks – an old story, still going on now. Cheating players reputations were ruined. In 1960, Congress revised the Communications Act of 1934 to stop fixing of quiz shows, so we know it won’t happen again. Public service benefited from this action as these entered the list of the shows of shame. Winnings were limited then but that changed in 2008.
Some time ago I wrote some of what follows on dreaded passwords in another book. I modified it because it’s so important. Years ago there was a television show called Password. Contestants were given a word, the password, and had to respond with another. Today password has an entirely different meaning – another word for hell. On the show you were given a clue, but today, you aren’t given a chance. For access, you have to provide an ID as well as a password. Unfortunately, you can’t decline to play this game unless you’re a hermit.
You’re not supposed to write passwords down, but how can you not? I maintain a file – both on my PC as well as on paper – with IDs and corresponding passwords. Visiting many web sites, you’ll have dozens of these combinations. It gets worse. Each account has multiple passwords such as: your father’s maiden name; city of your first arrest; name of your first pet scorpion; names of three passengers on board the Titanic. These are security questions. There’s more bad news: some companies require you to change your password every four months. Password used to be fun.
Various enterprises have passwords restrictions so there’s no consistency. One system may require numbers only, a second, letters of the alphabet only, while a third may let you use either. One account has to have the magic word begin with a number while a second demands that you start with a letter. At the same time a third system may not have a restriction in this regard. Don’t forget about the difference between upper case and lower case, another potential headache. One password has to have only six characters; another requires from four to eight and a third might need from five to nine. There are more headache-inducing rules, but I’ll skip those.
I don’t think you can use Wingdings in your password and no obscene words are allowed. Some businesses spoil all the fun. On one contract, I was handed a sheet of password rules and guidelines. One suggestion was to take the first letter of each word of a phrase, such as “Be aware Reggie feels television is more enjoyable,” and use that as your magic word. This would result in BARFTIME, but is that any easier to remember than YQSKPHW, which I get by randomly hitting keys in front of me? I believe that the last password is the name of a Russian diplomat. If you follow this mentioned guideline, you now have to remember a different phrase for each password. That will certainly make the situation a lot better.
What I suggest for making our lives easier is standardization with fewer rules. Allow numbers and letters of the alphabet with no distinction between upper case and lower, but don’t require either. Words that people can remember should not be ruled out. If these combinations have to be changed at all, make the change necessary on January 1 and July 1 each year and at no other time. I suggest that once the rules are made, no changes should ever be allowed to them. Perhaps PCs could be made more secure so that hackers can’t get anywhere close to them. Since my suggestions about standardization won’t be implemented soon enough for most of us, we need another solution right now. While consulting, I did my best by using the same password or at least the basis – and for the most part this worked. I ran into snags but I solved it by adding an X at the beginning or end of my basis. A 9 would work the same way if there needed to be at least one number present. To take care of the required change of passwords, I changed them all after a month even if they didn’t have to be.
My system still wasn’t foolproof but it made the entire process somewhat manageable. Of course, I still had to write down the passwords. As grim and confusing as all these suggestions and actions are, you have one last option: call the security help desk. Actually, annoying them as often as possible might be a good idea. Besides, you won’t ever again have to worry about forgetting any of your passwords or writing them down – the less paperwork, the better. This will certainly decrease your productivity since you’ll need to wait for the callback. However, you get paid by the hour or you’re salaried, so why should you give a hoot? Just remember you have to always look busy. You’ll be fine and your company will foot the bill. This suggestion to frequently call for help isn’t worth squat if you’re self-employed or retired. Nevertheless, make every effort to never forget your ATM password.
I’ve come up with a password that I hope to use for all my accounts, everywhere: “With_liburty_and_justice_4_awl.” It meets the requirements that you need numbers, letters of the alphabet, special characters and even capital letters. You’ll note that I changed the spelling of two words to thwart the enemy. I hope one of the future requirements is not a Chinese character or the letter o with a slash through it, something only found in the name of New York taxi drivers. Nonetheless, I think giving up liberty is worth the security.
It really is amazing what we are put through just to be productive. How can you not forget a password every so often? When you really think about it, the people whom these magic combinations of letters and numbers are supposed to keep out of the system, namely the hackers, don’t have any problem with passwords. They’re in without them while the normal users are locked out.
The forgotten password is a real pain in the xxx. Most likely the place you’re trying to sign on to has no record of passwords, but they can recognize your device – that’s another password. When the password is not remembered, you’ll see the screen that lets you change that magic word. If you do, don’t forget to update your list of all your passwords and make sure to save the file. You might be able to then update the new password with the old one. If so, you could have logged on with the old password. In some cases you may have to wait three years to revert to the previous one. If the site doesn’t save passwords, how did they know what it was? As you can see, signing on requires at least two passwords, but easily more than half a dozen since the ID itself is a password.
There’s another possibility, even worse than the new password option. This asks a security question that you provided the answer to some time ago. You’ll have to check your list or hope you know the answer. Assuming you forgot the reply, how about a simpler question like: What was the year you first were fined for sending texts while driving? I don’t remember that either. I never promised you a garden with vegetables.
My credit union web site needs a new transmission. Away from my desktop, when I tried to check my balance there, the system wasn’t sure of my identity so a screen appeared indicating that a code would be transmitted to my home via phone, which I would then enter. Since I had no cell phone and wasn’t at home, the call would be useless. I mentioned the workaround earlier and that’s what I used: I called the credit union. Instead of this phone call solution, why not just ask for the answer to a security question, which the credit union has? You can add another phone number with the security option, but since you can’t log on, you can’t affect that addition. What would someone in therapy do? The answer is to call the business. How about some common sense?
Too many web sites need remediation as users encounter problems even when keying the correct ID and password. Maybe there was a legitimate mistake by the person signing on but when the same result occurs after careful entry, that’s a site problem – a software bug. You might be able to have your password sent to you in an email. I doubt that is possible – many sites don’t have your password – but you will get an email with a new one that’s easy to remember, such as YQSKPHW. Then you can change that obnoxious password to another.
I was looking for year-end statements for an investment site, which I zeroed out at the end of 2014. I clicked on access my account and then wound up at another screen on which I press LOG IN TO MY ACCOUNT. If you think this is overkill, read on. The next screen has a place to enter my ID and under it are the words: Where do I enter my pin? This means I need go to two more screens and hope to get on the account. Entering the correct ID, I have to answer three security questions and then my regular password. By this time, I had forgotten it but checked my cheat seat and then logged on. There I see these words with an option: Would you like to update the saved password for xxxxxxxxx? I thought I had already done that. Perhaps this had to be done daily. People are so obsessed with security and use it as a lame excuse, resulting in nothing being accomplished, or if so with too much trouble.
Before that, on this same site, trying to logon on, I had to answer three security statements. This situation was puzzling because not only did I have to provide answers, but also questions. I don’t recall that craziness before, or maybe I should call it lunacy. Web designers for this business probably went to cosmology school instead of getting computer educated.
Many times I asked the question posed by the title of this chapter regarding my tangles with technology – a tango with tech is out of the question. As creator of this treatise, I’ve taken on the assignment as the tech crusader, which is not affiliated with the Catholic Church of the last millennium. My advice is to turn it off as much as possible and not becoming addicted to it but also understanding that we really can’t live without it. I mentioned the E life method in chapter five and there’s an important addition: Eradicate tech and our relying on it so much in our lives. Besides that method, I’ve offered many ideas before so I won’t repeat them here. Less technology means better health, less stress, more time for living, family and friends as well as less frustration.
The title of the chapter is that of a 1971 song by the late Marvin Gaye from an album of the same name. Selling over two million copies, it was at the top of the Hot Soul Singles chart for over a month as well as reaching the second spot on the Billboard Hot 100 list.