Identity Chaos
I booted up my computer this morning. And I wait, as I normally do, for the machine to grind its way to life. With Windows XP, I am used to the wait. The boot up sequence gives me time to check my voice mail, read my paper mail, go through the newspaper, and read a small novel. And, if there is a security patch, I can usually fit in a workout as well.
However, this morning was not a normal morning. No. The login prompted me for a new password before I could gain access to my computer.
“Hmmm,” I thought, “I just changed the password last week. Why do I need to change it again?”
Oh well. No problem. I keyed in a new password. And then I discovered that a new security policy had been implemented.
“Your password must be 8 characters minimum and it must contain a combination of letters and numbers. You cannot use any of your previous 13 passwords. Please enter your new password now.”
Identity chaos.
Also known as password chaos.
This is a situation in which users have multiple identities and passwords across a variety of networks, applications, computers and/or computing devices. To further complicate matters, each of the user’s passwords may be subject to different rules, allow access at different security levels, and expire on different dates.
I have over 150 userid/passwords. This is simply out of control.
I purchased a software program to manage the list of userid/passwords. But, I have to maintain all of the changes manually. Which I forget to do. So the list of userid/passwords gets staledated and becomes useless.
Not that it matters really. The software program is password protected and I can’t remember the password.
Isn’t it great to be secure?
It would almost be less work to not protect anything and deal with the identity theft rather than the Chaos. Maybe it’s a ploy to keep people from using passwords. I have one … “password” lol