Once upon a time, long ago in a faraway office a plague of uncontrollable tantrums began to reach epidemic proportions; the specialists could see what caused the outbursts of rage and set about inoculating office workers worldwide through technology improvement. The cause of that epidemic: printer connectivity.
The inoculation process was multi-faceted: reliable new printer technology, enhanced Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, and plug-and-play (PnP) simplicity, all of which resulted in all but eliminating the frustrations that afflicted even the most mild-mannered of office workers.
Nowadays we don’t need to print so much stuff because our smartphones are much smarter, and we’ve learned to read things on screen and save them to the cloud without needing a hard-copy – phewww. That heightened frustration, so often accompanied by the utterance, “I can’t get the ******* thing to print”, has now largely been eliminated.
Unfortunately, the elimination of printer rage left a void that has now been replaced by a new scourge: the password; In medical parlance you could say the ‘virus [non-IT] has mutated’.
Ask yourself: “How much of my time has been wasted recently by the following words: INCORRECT PASSWORD, or NO SUCH USERNAME”?
In my case the answer is, “lots”. And too often those words pop up at the most inconvenient time eg at the airport trying to transfer funds to pay for a flight change! Mmmmmm, no pressure.
“Passwords are no big deal, so what’s the problem?”, I hear some of you ask.
- Problem one: I have several email addresses – which one did I use when I signed up?
- Problem two: I have several devices – my password manager is accessible on most of them most of the time – the word ‘most’ is the problem here.
- Problem three: Rules keep changing regarding password strength – does anyone else experience severe anxiety when informed your favourite app’s password now requires an extra 4 characters?
- Problem four: Never use the same password on different sites – yeah right!
- Problem five: Never write-down or share your passwords – my memory is pretty good, but even I have limits.
We need a new vaccine for the password epidemic.
Related: A BUSiness predicament
