PAsSworDS

For the better part of my career I worked around computers.  I saw the progression from bulky mammoth mainframes to the first ‘desk top’.  There were times when there were no networks between computers.  You would copy material onto some medium and walk it or mail it over to another computer.  At each step, we thought it was all pretty cool!  Who could imagine?

Before too long the concept of passwords was introduced.  At first all it was for was to unlock a screen to allow open access to an entire computer.  It was nothing more than a house key and there were zero requirements on password string - other than it had to be at least 4 characters as I recall.  My first password was ‘OpenSesame’.  I thought it was clever and it made me laugh.  Of course in today’s environment it would fail nearly all password security measures.  

Once networks took hold and security became more of a reality, passwords grew up.  Before the advent of password management applications, one recommendation was to think of a favorite sentence or statement.  Perhaps one for me might be ‘My favorite ice cream is Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia’.  This is a phrase I can remember (or at least that is the assumption).  Then take the first letter of each word and create a password string.  Use ‘2’ in place of ‘to, too, two’, 0 in place of ‘O”, 1 in place of I, 4 for ‘for’, etc.  Use special characters when permitted.  Maybe create some conventions - mine was to add an “!’ At the end of every string. So my password becomes Mf!c!B&JCG!.

For a time, I created these strings to pair up with whatever site I was logging into.   So a financial password was a sentence that had something to do with money.  My password sentence for my health care sites was ‘I want to stay healthy until I die’ - or in other words -  Iw2shu1die!.  I will say now that this system was a bit cumbersome and I was often too clever with the use of special characters or strings.  Plus once password generation apps came out, I mostly abandoned this approach.  

But I choose that sentence for health care related sites because that was what I wished for - and probably what many people wish for.  Everyone wants to ‘die in their sleep’ healthy one day, passed on the next.  Now that I am where I am I can’t deny that I think about that password string and whether I achieve that wish.  The truth is I am healthy - I have virtually no aches or pains.  I jump out of bed most mornings with ease.  I have no chronic conditions, don’t t take any medications nor have I had any surgeries.  I now have the ease to realize that I will never get osteoporosis or suffer from Alzheimers or re-learn how to speak after a stroke.  There are times I look at my body and think  it doesn’t look used up - there is still life in there. I was in the ER recently and overheard my attending physician talking on the phone and knew she was talking about me because she described my demographics and condition.   Then I heard her say ‘She looks really good’.  I had to chuckle to myself and think ‘well, at least I have that going for me’.  

I ponder this password string and have come to the conclusion that I did achieve that wish.  Society might not think of it this way but death is a process not a singular event.  But I think I can say for myself that I will feel like I was healthy until fairly recently.    And for that I am grateful.

Now, if I could only remember my password for my Bitcoin account...