Passwords asswords...

I am one of those people who have problems with passwords. I'm either creating ones that are too weak or I make them so complicated that I forget them immediately after their first use. I try to make them pertain to something in my day to day life so that I'll be likely to remember but I never do.

I used to have a system. I had one password for each of the sites I frequent that was a variation on one word and I was able to remember it, no problem. Then, some of the sites decided that their security wasn't secure enough so they started changing the requirements for their passwords which now had to be at least 8 characters long and include at least one capital letter and a number. This complicated things beyond my comprehension. For instance, just for this blog, in the past several weeks I have had to change my password because I can never remember what the heck the password was in the first place. I wrote down my passwords and keep them right next to my computer. You know, in the most obvious place ever where they say never to keep your passwords. Yeah, there. But the ones that I have written down were changed long ago due to the new rules so the list is useless. I leave it there. If anyone tries to get into any website using those old passwords they will die of frustration. I know...I've tried.

Another thing that irks me is when I think I've thought of a really good password and the website tells me "No, it's not good...try again." How very rude! And first of all, if I am not overly worried that someone will get into my blog, why should you be? And how is an amalgam of my name and my cat's name too weak? That's just silly!

At work, our network asks me to change my password very frequently. I have to write that one down or I'd be lost. I've asked around though and no one else is getting asked to change it quite so much. I'm beginning to get a complex about it.

Oh I do understand the need for secure passwords. I get it. But when I'm on the fifth or sixth or eighteenth try to get into my blog to no avail, I think "marywantsinnow" is as good a password as any!