Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Of Passwords & Trouble Logging in...

It is becoming a huge challenge for me to remember the various passwords for the numerous user ids and profiles that I have created in the cyber world. There are n number of sites which require one to be a member, and for want of better things to do in life, I have subscribed to many - which is proving to be a headache!

Of course, there are options to link all your accounts. But, what if it is hacked? I would lose it all... The age old wisdom suggests not to put all your apples in one basket. Hence the need for different names and passwords. Despite taking all usual precautions, one may find one's account hacked and out of bounds!!!

Creating "strong" passwords might be comparatively easy... Remembering them, is certainly not! And sometimes, even the "secret" question cannot help, as one have forgotten what was his secret question on this particular site. Then, one has to click the 'forgot password' link, which would send our password /  link to open the particular account. Pretty easy, huh? Naaah! one has forgotten the password for that particular e-mail account. 

The cycle of "forgot password", send it to my 'other' mail, access it, change the password for the first e-mail account first, then proceed to open it to change the password of the other site continues.... Oh! by the end of it, running in a marathon might be more appealing!

So, what is the solution? The best would be not to create too many ids - that will automatically bring down the password challenge. Or may be stick to the same user id (abcd@x.com; abcd@y.com etc etc.) or something similar (ab_cd@z.com). Because, believe it or not, in some cases, I couldn't even remember my user name! That complicates the matter a bit more, as one has to go through the username - password retrieval process. Your password could be anything under (for that matter even above) the Sun. Rake the brains to recall what one might have thought to be a good password; to no avail. As mentioned earlier, it could be anything!

Of late, I have found that the fingers automatically types the passwords of the sites I visit daily. Thus, logging into Facebook, Blogger or G mail is like an extension of breathing for me (I practically live in these now a days!). Certain other sites, which I access once in a blue moon, poses a greater challenge and pushes me into the "Trouble logging in" cycle...


May be the solution will be not to sign up with each and everything (this sounds so cool till something interesting turns up). And if one has to sign up, may be the password can be noted down else where... Don't know what will happen if one misplace that piece of paper, though....Sigh!!!

8 comments:

LeoPaw said...

So true. How much ever I try, I end up running this marathon at least once in a trimester.
BTW, loved the usage :"not to put all your apples in one basket".

Nisha said...

Thanks Leo! Welcome to the club! I often forget the passwords, login id and even wonder why I created an id in the first place..

roopz said...

Hei,I too have the same problem...

Nisha said...

I guess most of us have this problem sometime or the other...

Rohil V K B said...

Ahh..echoing the same...so very true :-)..exactly the same situation with me !!

Nisha said...

Rohil!
Thanks for dropping in @ Random thoughts... And its a consolation that not only a layman like me but also a tech guy like you face such problems.. :-)

M Ajoy Kumar said...

Nisha...I have a solution, which works well for me. If you have, and only if you have, an exclusive system that is used only by you (or only by you and your immediate family members), this solution works. Open a word document and as and when you create a new login id, type the site address, login id, password and the secret question in the word document. Save the word document with a password to open. Now you need to remember only one password - the one to open the word document! The only risk: if your system crashes and/or the above word document is damaged, then you are back to square one!

I also make sure to login to sites like netbanking, internet trading etc., which are prone to hacking, only from my home PC or office PC (which is exclusively used by me). I never login to these sites from a netcafe or shared systems.

Nisha said...

Yes sir, that is indeed a good solution. Thank you! Let me add that if one saves the details in a file in any other drive than C drive, it can be recovered. At least, that's what our computer guy told us when the last time our system crashed! So I now store all my files in other drives and also keep a back up some where else. But I have never saved the passwords till now.

And yes,its always advisable to use one's own system while using net banking and other similar services.

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