To be sick to death of PIN codes and passwords

[TheSinisterTrifle]

I know there is no alternative apart from retinal recognition or saliva swabs or whatever but.........

A few months ago I had my email account hacked into and changed my Ebay and Amazon details. Tonight I was trying to remember my passwords to order Christmas presents.

I worked out how many pin codes and passwords I have:

Three separate bank accounts and three separate pin codes and log in passwords. Personal.

Two business pin codes and passwords

Amazon - password with letters and numbers

Ebay - password with letters and numbers

A login password for my mobile phone - a mix of numbers and letters.

Pin number for the alarm system at work.

Another pin number for another door at work.

Pin number for the credit card terminal to log in

Another pin number to verify to credit card terminal

I am fecking dizzy with it all, but you are advised to not use the same PIN code or password!

Yanbu.

To much info, I have written all mine down in a book that kept in the safe, but that's just another number

Aaargh. I have my home lap top, my work lap top and my work computer and the office computer.

Please don't ask why. It would make sense if you saw where I worked!

I keep all mine in my locked in phone-with a password

I have to have 3 different usernames and passwords just to get on to my bloody work laptop Which contains, and never would contain, any sensitive information.

Here's a strategy:
Pin codes for cards - change them to one of the groups of digits on the card e.g. the last 4 numbers. That way you always have the Pin with you.
Passwords - use a consistent format such as 88xxxx33, where the xxxx is the name of the company/website/card etc. So you can always recreate without actually having to remember them individually

One way to deal with passwords is to think of a pass phrase which you can then adapt for different accounts. eg (off the top of my head)
I am going to shop at amazon now! becomes 1ag2saan! (substitute numbers for some letters/words and add punctuation)

so you remember a method to generate different passwords which look quite random but aren't.

Pin codes for cards - change them to one of the groups of digits on the card e.g. the last 4 numbers. That way you always have the Pin with you.

That sounds pretty insecure TBH. Better might be to take numbers at particular positions.

I think it was Martin Lewis who said on the radio that you should write them all down because a piece if paper is no help to a hacker.
Also, put them with your will because if you die then it makes it much easier for people to deal with all the accounts. Sorry, not a happy thought.

I was opening an account for something totally unimportant. It wanted at least 10 letters including upper case, lower case and numbers.

It did not need that level of password.

In terms of cards - I change mine to the same thing so I don't forget when it's a random credit card I hardly ever use

Is this any good to you?

Blue shoes-dealing with accounts is easiest if you just cancel all direct debits, they soon write to you. Just had to do this for my grandfather, much easier than trying to get through to them.

YANBU!
The problem I have is with passwords that need to be updated ever so often and because some need updating and some don't - and some more often than other! - you end up in a muddle even though you had a plan initially!

What you need is a password system, comprised of the name of the company/site, a random word, say Doll, a number sequence.

For example John Lewis:

JLDoll3415

Next:

NextDoll3415

Barclays:

BDoll3415

HSBC:

HsbcDoll3415

Yahoo
YhooDoll3415

etc etc

I hate it too. drives me mad. can't remember half of them.

YANBU

I forget sometimes and it is very frustrating!

Quint

I saw something like that in the Guardian last Saturday and have changed all my passwords accordingly. Really useful. I feel much better because I was using the same password for everything

It's maddening! Thanks for the suggestion Quint, will give that a go and see if it works better for me...

Its a pet hate of mine too.

I admit that I do it all wrong. My PIN for cash machines is the same one as I have had for the last 30 years now because I know I will never forget it. I have the same one for all of my debit and credit cards or I would be a complete basket case.

Online, I have the same logins and passwords for everywhere I go otherwise I would absolutely never remember them.

Not the way it is recommended, that is true, so feel free to tick me off. Nothing else works for me though, and believe me I have tried various systems.

Newt, maybe The Guardian has read my blog?

I do the Quint thing and it's been really helpful. Except the bastarding websites that want to tell you to use a different user name because "someone already has that user name" so instead of JaneSmith I can be JaneSmith758439 on one site and JaneSmith875490859403 on another site. And that is so very helpful and user-friendly when I probably use 30 or so websites on a more than one-off basis.

So now as well as managing passwords you have to manage your usernames as well. Oh and adapt your passwords for when they want two numbers, or two uppercase characters, or only one uppercase character and definitely one non-alphanumeric character or absolutely no non-alphanumeric characters what on earth were you thinking you idiot

Yanbu. I was booking tickets earlier this week so had to set up an account and a fancy 'must have upper case as well as lower case, certain number of digits, letters and numbers, and the tail feather from a dodo etc etc' password.

The dc's were in bed at the time so luckily they missed my expletives as I set it up.

Meglet

The thing with a system, any system, is that the rules are forever changing. So some want words and numbers, some you can't have double letters or numbers, some want capitals.