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Secondary education

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Change password hell in school

11 replies

andlondon · 30/01/2020 08:42

My dd has a school iPad and needs to keep more than 20 passwords to different accounts including email, submission of homework for every subject and passwords to every app in the iPad. All of the iPad is controlled by the school (though you bought it with your own money), you cannot do or change anything in it.

Now if it were the Spanish inquisition of the middle ages who set this password policy, it would have been more merciful than it is in my dd's school. No same password in any two of the more 20 accounts.

No words from dictionary included in any part of the password, no names, family names or any known persons, companies etc. Nor the same in reverse order (sirap not allowed, as it is reversed Paris).

At least two digits (but not in sequence, "12" now allowed) and at least two capital letters and at least two non alphabetical and non-digit). No previously used password on any of the 20 accounts allowed on any account.

No more than half characters of one of the previous passwords in the new password: if you previously had L2ondon52-=, new password cannot be L3ondon73(} because of "ondon".

Change password on every account once a month.

This is really painful and my dd just cried yesterday when she wrote an important email to her teacher and couldn't send it as she was required to change the password and she could not invent a new one complying with the rules and finally her account was locked.

And all this password policy is because very often the accounts of girls in the school are hacked. And how does this hacking happens? Did anybody really crack a password to someone's account? No. Just one girl told her password to another girl who logged into her account and began sending outrageous emails under her friend's name. Or some girl received a scam email and clicked the link in it and her account was compromised. What does it have to do with the passwords?

OP posts:
FiveStoryFire · 30/01/2020 08:45

Ridiculous policy. Get your DD to store them all in a password app on her phone so she can always access them. The one I've got also lets you set rules for automatically generating new passwords. It doesn't have to be hell.

MyEnormousTurnip · 30/01/2020 08:46

Jeez talk about overkill. And I can’t get over you having to buy an actual iPad for school use??

LittleMissGrumpyGrot · 30/01/2020 08:48

WTF 😳

ealingwestmum · 30/01/2020 09:21

Oh my lord. I nearly cried reading your post. Your poor DD. Definitely go for the above advice of password app. Unless, there is a no phones policy during the day...😳

Spam88 · 30/01/2020 09:30

Bloody hell 😐

My DH was given a tip the other day to pick a sentence and use the first letter of each word for your password - might be a good day of generating random letters. She could even use a book and just work through each sentence in turn, use the page number as the number element and then stick a ! at the start and end.

TeenPlusTwenties · 30/01/2020 09:34

I was going to say similar, think of a song and use the initials from that.

But 20 new passwords every month? That is totally ridiculous and will lead the pupils to writing them down which defeats the whole object.

prh47bridge · 30/01/2020 09:36

Can she install apps on the iPad? If so, there are a number of apps available that will generate random passwords and remember them for her.

stripeypillowcase · 30/01/2020 09:43

20 apps Shock
that's silly

dc have 3 passwords - 1 for the device and one each for a group of apps (different ones for communication and learning apps) and you cannot log in to another person's app on your device.
change of password is requested randomly, about once or twice every term.

not sharing passwords is one of the many things dc need to learn.

Echobelly · 30/01/2020 09:46

That's insane - and what needs to be so secure on a school device?! In case someone evilly steals your password and does your French homework for you?

It's actually less secure for people to have to come up with multiple complex passwords as they end up having to write them down somewhere in order to remember them!

inwood · 30/01/2020 09:48

That is absolutely bonkers!

andlondon · 30/01/2020 10:41

Thanks for all the tips!

(Yes, we had to buy that iPad with our own money and indeed it is only for school use and it is not possible to install any app on it at all).

So we cannot install a password app in the iPad, but we can do on dd's private phone, however no phone use during the school day (phones in school lockers).

Yes, of course all girls write their passwords on paper, and my daughter has a small notebook where she keeps track of all passwords.

Today I realised I need to help my dd and I thought of a method for changing them and I came up with the following solution:

Use some constant part which you will never change (can be first letters of a phrase like "Oidad" (Our IT department are donkeys).

Add to it the description of the account the password is for (but exclude the last letter, as dictionary words not allowed):

Oidad-Engli
Oidad-Geograph
...

Add to it 3 letters of month and two digits of year (as password needs to be reset every month and next year same months will go):

Oidad-Engli-Jan-20
Oidad-Scienc-Feb-20
...

This will automatically satisfy the digital component of the password.

And finally add two constant chars like ! ?

Oidad-Mat-Feb-20?!

(Also use capital letter to start each bit, as capitals required).

Easy to remember and changed every month.

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