Friday, November 21, 2014

Password to Forgiveness


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There is a fascinating article in the New York Times magazine about our various device passwords and how they are often an expression of who we are.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/magazine/the-secret-life-of-passwords.html
Most of us hate having to use passwords, yet we are creatures for whom meaning is important. So passwords are used for everything from motivation, to mourning, to statements of love. One person used a password which served as a reminder to save for a trip to Thailand and it was successful.

Often they have rich back stories. A motivational mantra, a swipe at the boss, a hidden shrine to a lost love, an inside joke with ourselves, a defining emotional scar — these keepsake passwords, as I came to call them, are like tchotchkes of our inner lives. They derive from anything: Scripture, horoscopes, nicknames, lyrics, book passages. Like a tattoo on a private part of the body, they tend to be intimate, compact and expressive.

It was touching to read that a company which suffered devastating losses to staff  in the Trade Tower attacks of 911 was able to reconstruct passwords, with Microsoft's assistance, using clues from personal information provided by families.

The one which really caught my attention was Forgive@h3r a computerized "11th commandment" to forgive an ex-wife. In a way this password is a prayer, and we can hope a successful one.

Do your passwords have personal meaning? Do you use any for motivation? What is your reaction to the forgiveness password?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

My passwords are designed so that I can remember them easily ... personal meaning - I guess so ... familiar numbers and names from the past, etc.

roger said...

I ensure I use letters, numbers and characters such as question marks or exclamation marks in all of my passwords, hoping that will make it more difficult to get hacked. I use portions of a telephone number and a word to describe my favourite sport.

So there...I pretty much just handed you my password!

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