Posted On: Tuesday - February 13th 2018 2:33PM MST
In Topics: Curmudgeonry Artificial Stupidity
Just to follow up as the 2nd of 3 notes promised on specific areas of modern electronic artificial stupidity (as opposed to AI), I'll just write a bit to explain problems that I'm sure I'm not the only one having. (Here is the 1st of the 3 follow-ups.)
I mentioned getting sent round and round with this electronic device yesterday. Between remembering passwords, getting replacement passwords and pins sent to email accounts that I no longer have the passwords to, updating this and that, requiring yet additional passwords, it was a scene, man! No, I didn't use the table saw on the device, so there's that ... Now, this writer does know that there are programs that keep your passwords together with only one necessary to open it. That's great if you are always on the same device, or will never, ever lose, or lose access to, the one that's got all the info. It's not always like that though.
You can synch up passwords, though that's not recommended for security reasons. You can write em all down in a little paper notebook and don't lose that. That's definitely not recommended, but done anyway by bright people who are just sick of the bullshit. I found one on the table in the office. I didn't know what or whose it was until I glanced through it and saw all that, and then a woman came out of the bathroom near by - "hey, is this yours, are you Barbara?". "Yes, thanks." "Good thing I'm not a thief or a pervert, huh?" Hell, I wouldn't have remembered any of it without a lot of effort anyway.
You can come up with one really hard one, without birthdays, names of cats and babies, etc., as all that personal stuff is what let's hackers easily get started on you. Then, you can vary this difficult-to-crack one a bit to use on various software programs that all want passwords, but some want it this way - 6-10 chars. no odd ones - others another way - at least 10 characters, must have numbers, what-have-you. You've still got to remember how you shifted around the pw when you (try to) get into each piece of software, i.e. tool, to get something done. That's all good until the program asks you to change the password for security reasons every 3 months. Then, that's where people say "the hell with it" and just go the notepad.
One more thing, since I mentioned the cats and babies, and "your first car", "your home town address", etc go along with this point. Those security questions - I never put the right stuff there either. It's not their damn business! Don't give out any more info than you have to (not for the Feral Gov's sake - they probably got it all, but for ID theft and corporate assholery reasons). Since I give bogus answers to those security questions, I usually don't remember what those answers were either, when I'm supposed to need 'em. However, I think I just came up with a system. No, I'm not telling. It just keeps me able to use my tools without spending an hour or two a week gettting the run-around. My table saw doesn't do this to me, so that might explain why woodworking is so peaceful.
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