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Passwords fail me

"Help me... help me... help me!" - The Fly Poor Andre Delambre. So driven, so dedicated, so curious.
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"Help me... help me... help me!"

- The Fly

Poor Andre Delambre. So driven, so dedicated, so curious. Nearly a decade before the cleaver writers of Star Trek sidestepped the sticky problem of how exactly one moved from orbit to planet without the attendant hassles of piloting a bigass space ship through the pull of gravity - and quite possibly an atmosphere - or repeatedly firing up a smaller shuttle craft, by simply writing in the age-old conceit of a fully-functional transporter, Andre was beavering away in his basement working on just such a device. Why exactly he wanted to convert matter into energy and back again - possibly to escape the '50s - wasn't clear but then, neither was how a man so painstakingly careful didn't notice the fly that buzzed into the transport chamber with him. Yikes!

Poor David - or was it Al - Hedison. In the early days of a 50-year acting career, spent largely as a footnote on television shows none of us would willing admit we watched, he was forever hung with the "Help Me!" line, weekly squeaked as he crawled around his lab, a common housefly with a human face and a scientist's brain. I don't think it would be giving too much away, especially since no one watches black-and-white movies anymore, to reveal he was swatted out of his misery before discovering the joys of fly sex. Oh well, at least he never lived to feel the pain of computers.

Lately I've been feeling that pain. I don't suppose it's as bad as growing wings, regurgitating more disgusting goo than usual or dodging flyswatters but it's an almost universal, 21 st century pain. I feel it, you feel it, people who barely even use computers feel it.

Passwords. User IDs. Obtuse hints at bits of trivia long forgotten.

As I write, I'm certain that if there is a hell, a whole new Dantesque ring is being excavated for software writers and security "experts" who can't manage to get themselves out of the sticky flytrap of passwords they've captured all of us in. I say enough's enough. No more passwords.

Right now I can't retrieve my phone messages from afar. Why not? I don't know the password. Never did. It was a secret my Perfect Partner took with her to oblivion. I can't get into my benefits plan at the MotherCorp: The Sequel. Why not? I guessed too many times at my once-a-year password and am now considered a potential terrorist and locked out. Well, isn't that just like management? Can't sign my employee agreement either. Did I ever have a password for that one? Beats me, but it takes one to get in. Dave, in case you were wondering, I agree to whatever it is you'd like me to agree to. Can we call it even?

I can't get into any of the infrequent frequent flyer programs I'm marginally enrolled in. They all have passwords, just none of the passwords I've been patient enough to try. I can get into my bank account, work schedule, brokerage account, Amazon.com profile, Whistler library, various Logitech device accounts and, oh, about three dozen others as long as I'm at my computer. It remembers the passwords. I can't get into any of them from any other computer though. And, horrors, my computer has a password so if I ever Alzheimer it, I'm screwed.

Let's face it, we're all frogs in an increasingly warming pot of water. When passwords first entered our lives, they were simple affairs. Show of hands: how many of you remember using something like 11111, 12345, your birthday or ME as a password in the early days? Just as I thought; that'd be... one, two, three, four... all of you.

When it was just things like bank cards at numerical pads that looked like phone pads turned upside down and right-to-left, I realized it was easier to remember words than strings of numbers. That trick still works for some things. Not computers though.

The first salvo in the increasingly complex, you'll-never-remember-your-password war was the chilling message, "Your password will expire in 10 days. Would you like to change your password now?" NOOoooooooo! Shit, I just memorized my password, now you're going to expire it?

It was, of course, work where that ingenious bit of torture first appeared. "Really. Every 90 days. A new password." But those were still the halcyon days of passwords. Winter, spring, summer, autumn - fall was too short - sufficed and were remarkably easy to remember... as long as I kept a calendar on the wall nearby.

Good enough? No way. Soon the message "Your password must include a number. Oh yeah, and none of the following symbols !@#$%^&*+?/," appeared. Funny, that last one is exactly the word I was searching for to describe how I feel about this turn of events. Then one of the letters needed to be capitalized... then a minimum length longer than the length of any of the standard words I used for passwords. Then change it every 30 days. Jeez, it now take me longer to log in to some computers and sites than it does to write this column.

Of course, it's not like the securogeeks don't have a heart. They'll give you a hint. "Bow-wow." Yes, I do feel like a dog being told to do a trick to get a treat. But as hints go, here's a hint for you: There are no numbers in my dog's name!

And then there's the softer, secondary security questions. "Who is your favourite celebrity?" Are you kidding me? I tried answering Ken Melamed; it wouldn't accept it. Sorry, Ken.

I know somewhere there are hypno-eyed geeks and former security guards sitting around laughing. "Wonder what we can get them to do next?" I suspect they look longingly at TSA and wonder how they might perfect a virtual patdown. Bring it on. I figure we're about two permutations away from full-on revolt. Users of the world, unite.

After half a dozen attempts to get into US Air's reluctant-flyer rewards(sic) program last night I gave up. I don't know why I bother. Hate flying and never use whatever smattering of points I've accumulated anyway.

And this trip I've been particularly dreading. I'm heading south again, this time to help my father step into the white light, assuming I make it on time. It's been a longish time coming. It caps a year of loss I hope to never experience again. Still, how exactly do you say goodbye to one of the two people who have known you since the moment you were born?

I wish I knew.