Password Pain

Mar 20, 2005

While I’m feeling curmudgeonly, let me bitch about something else: logins and passwords. We all have dozens of them by now, for all the different sites which want us to log in before they’ll give us anything. As a marketer, I understand wanting to know more about who’s visiting your site, but as a consumer, I am tired of keeping track of logins and passwords. I try to maintain some consistency, to give myself less to think about each time I need to log in, but the sites themselves don’t allow it. On some, your login is your email address, on others you make it up (deirdre, in spite of its rarity, is already taken on most sites). Different sites have different password requirements – minimum number of characters, no repeating characters, must use at least one numeral, etc. To be really secure, at least on the sites where it matters (e.g., banking) I should use very different passwords for each. But then how do I remember them all? I shouldn’t write them down anywhere, especially not on my computer.

It would be easier if, when I try to log in, the site would at least remind me of the format originally requested. If my login is my email address, I need to be reminded of that. If my password had to include a numeral, remind me of that and it will help me remember the password I set. Most sites fail to give this kind of reminder.

I will be perfectly happy when biometrics become a viable option. Yes, look at me, know that it’s me, give me access, and stop asking for a @#@$ password!