Opinion : Hackers, passwords and pins

We've all heard it over and over, don't use the same passwords for your online accounts...bank, e-mail, online store accounts, facebook, etc.

They also tell you NOT to write down the passwords.

After last weeks episode with facebook hacking, I thought, "No big deal, they can have my facebook account, it's not that important."

Then we got an e-mail today from our "friend in London" using someone else's e-mail again.

That one bothered me. I don't know what e-mail I have in my account, and I suppose I should go through and delete what might be used to gain information should it get hacked into....just as soon as I finish the rest of my to do list...

For now I've done the responsible thing, given different passwords to my accounts.

I KNOW what's going to happen...I won't remember which password is on which account, I'll try to sign in too many times, and will be blocked.

It happens all the time with my bank account, the account I really worry about. I love online banking, so I'm much more diligent about protecting those passwords

I change the passwords, then try to sign in, and try to sign in, and try to sign in, and then have to call the 800 number to reset the password again.

We've got different pin numbers on our bank accounts and I bet the check out ladies think that I'm going senile when I can't remember which number I need. I will stand there and look at my card and start searching all the numbers in my head.

Let's see, it's not the multiple phone numbers that we have, not the address, not the social security numbers, the birthdays, the grades and ages of my kids, not grandbaby birthdates, or weights, or the kid's anniversaries...pin numbers, pin numbers...oh yeah, now is it this one or this one?

I bet the guy at the other end of the bank phone line is wondering where I've been, it's time to change them again.

Maybe these websites would be further ahead to come up with doing away with passwords and ask security questions. They could set up about 10 per account that you can either create or use. Questions that ask for the name of your first dog or cat, your favorite book when you were a kid, the teacher you loved the most, the school bullies in your life, things that probably aren't online someplace.

I'm sure there's a better way to prevent this, but until the guys that are smarter than I, come up with it, I'm back to scribbling those passwords down and hoping I can keep them straight.

I think passwords and pins were really created to test our memories and convince us all that we're losing our minds.

Can't you just see these 20+ something geeks sitting at their computers and laughing with glee as they create more programs that need passwords, and pins as well as a security question? When they've finally gotten the program designed, they throw a party giving each other a high five and saying, "Just try to remember this one Pops!"