The Adventures of AlisterComputeron

I was reading an article on CNET yesterday about the pain of having to remember so many passwords in this age of online accounts, networks, wi-fi access, and so on.  According to the article:

The average computer user has 6.5 passwords, each of which is shared across 4 different sites, and has about 25 accounts that require passwords, according to Microsoft research published last year (PDF).  Each person types in an average of eight passwords every day.

That seems about right.  I tend to use the same password on non-critical sites, like email and news sites.  But I have unique, strong passwords on my banking and credit card site.  To create my passwords so that I can remember them, I use quotes from a popular TV character.  I just have to remember which password is for which site.  I use the same method for choosing passwords at work, too.

Passwords are such a pain the butt, though.  “Users enter a password an average of eight times a day,” unless you’re an IT dude, and then it’s more on the order of like eight times an hour.  Unfortunately, for enterprise networks any way, that’s about all we’ve got to authenticate users to the network.

And I understand when, like today coincidentally, a user asked me how he could reset all of his passwords so they were the same on each system.  Some of our users need to have up to three or four passwords to access the various systems we have.  A couple of these systems are legacy systems that we are phasing out over the next couple of years.  But still, it’s a burden on the users to have to remember two or three passwords at work, and another three or four for their personal online access.  No wonder passwords are so easily hacked.

Passwords are here to stay, either as a primary or secondary form of authentication, for the foreseeable future.  Security consultant Bruce Marshall says,

I thought that in my lifetime, we’d see passwords disappear because there would be more secure alternatives.

He gives some sound advice for storing passwords on his blog.  He suggests readers read the entire post, so it won’t be taken out of context.

It is a bit odd, though, that with all of the fancy technology we have, you’d think we would’ve created better ways to access it.