Pluggers by Rick McKee for March 02, 2021

The problem with us computer using “Pluggers” is that the modern systems demand passwords that are too complicated for us to remember. ;/

I have a notebook that has my passwords to some of my online profiles (Yahoo email, Gmail email, Facebook, church directory, bank account, wifi, grocery store employee database … just not GoComics for I have that mentally memorized).

A while back I was verbally told the admin password at work for our servers. For 4 years it never changed. I was very discreet but sometimes working late at night I had to get things fixed so I used it to reboot or amend some software. Five years ago I got laid off. I would bet a $1000 the admin password is still the same.

At yet another company I was shown how to simply wipe the memory location to remove a password.

The highlight of my day is when I find that slip of paper that I wrote said password upon.

Not a good practice to say it aloud though.

Yeup.

A Plugger keeps using his old monitor, because not even Goodwill will accept it as a donation.

Paper and pen will help ;-)

I have mine written down, but the problem is that I forget where my password list is, so i end up guessing anyway.

I have a document that’s seven pages long with passwords and challenge questions. Every site is different every answer is different. Face it everyone was born in Moon City.

The sites that make me crazy are the ones that never accept your password, but refuse to let you set your new password to the old password that wasn’t your password.

The highlight of my tech day is when I get thru the day without the frustration and actually KEEP my lap top instead of send it into indefinite flight off the back deck.

That’s why I have all my user IDs and Passwords written down – two pages worth. Seems every site has different requirements and restrictions so you can’t use the same ID and Password for all of them. Who said computers were supposed to improve our lives?

I tend to do a lot of my annual donations on “Giving Tuesday” and last year, for the first time, the system insisted that I sign in using my ‘password’. Since I didn’t remember every setting one up at all, I tried to change my password. It asked me, “What was his sister’s name?” That didn’t make any sense to me and then it asked, “What was your first car?”, which I could answer. Then it asked “Who was the lion king?” I suddenly realized what had happened. Years before, I had two cats, a brother and a sister, and I referred to the brother as the lion king because he was big and yellow and loved to sit in the sun in the ‘lion king’ pose. The password set up allowed you to write your own challenge clues and I had done so — without realizing that the challenges could be presented out of order.

I rely entirely on that “save password” feature and “keep me logged in”. When that fails it means starting a new identity.

DFAS: change password every 150 days, equal number UC, lc, #s, symbs, (except 6 symbs not allowed) and no three characters may spell a word nor be sequentially the same for four continuous passwords. DFAS uses Windows XP (2001) and Internet Explorer version 1.0. amount of time to steal password through DFAS system backdoor, about 20 seconds.

Acquire and learn how to use a password locker.

Truer than you know.

No guessing here. I use my Password Safe to keep all of them and the only one I have to remember is to the Safe itself.

Or, The Strikes and You’re Out! Locked out.

Ruthie over at Flo & Friends changed hers to “incorrect,” so it tells her “The password is incorrect.”