Passwords

Dads had GR Vishwanath! Eknath Solkar! A certain Nawab! (Sunny G and Kapil D belonged to us too!) We have a Sachin, a Dada, every mother-in-law’s favourite Rahul Dravid. They had time. We have fancy watches. They wrote letters, walked half a mile to post it. We send mails in a jiffy! They would spend half a day at bank to withdraw money. Here we UPI in style, as if someone else’s money! They waited for the morning newspaper to begin the day. Now the usual circadian rhythms of waking up in the morning has long been replaced by whatsapp beeps! To sum up, they did everything which we do today , albeit differently.

I do not intend to sound cynic and be a holy cow but is there anything they did not have? Something which we can proudly say is proprietary. Sure there is. They may have words to keep, but we do have passwords to remember! Yes….we have given the Earth, a world of passwords, which is in itself a memory test to be taken daily! Little do we realize that passwords shadow us everywhere, from logging into accounts, to retrieving e-mail, accessing applications, databases, networks, web sites, and even reading the morning newspaper online!

As we wake up in the morning, among the first things that we lay our hands are the cell phones. The first refusal in the morning comes from them and not from the taxis! That is, if you do not key in the right pattern lock. Three times unlucky and it will sulk! After you unbolt your device, it stays unlocked as long as it senses that it’s on your body. If you put down your device, like if you set it on a table, your device will take a minute to automatically lock itself. Assuming (!) you are smart, you will key in right and as you rush to the facebook corridors to count the likes and shares of your latest post on RG Kar (Justice for RG Kar….and this is serious) expecting the post to have become viral by now! He He………not before you type in your password yet again! As you rush to attend the morning meeting, have already been late by a couple of minutes (each minute in the morning is so naughty!), the Uber demands its due. And Google Pay demands PIN. Somehow, you shoulder push everyone coming your way to reach your desk and make your presence counted by a quick unmute in MS Teams. If it fails to appreciate your gasping for breath situation, it means the pass code has not gone through. During the day, you clean up the pending creditors who have come knocking…..the electricity board, the housing society dues, credit card bills, mobile service provider, and who not. Each such payment ensures that the respective passwords grab, pull, and twist your ears to remember not to forget. As the day ends and if the apartment where you stay is as smart as you, ensure you remember right the E-Key feature to allow you to enter your own house or risk being stranded out! The care and effort we take to key in the password when threatened as being the last chance before it gets locked is a tensed 3 runs off the last ball or a Qasim like situation for a deja vu to follow! We all know what happened to poor Qasim as he forgot the magic words (password….what else!)and got trapped inside the cave to be quartered mercilessly in Ali Baba & the Forty Thieves!

Make no mistake. Passwords rule us and how!. All of us indeed have accumulated password repositories though fingerprints and facial recognition are also tried upon. Passwords indeed have become like ‘underwears’, ‘we have to change them regularly, cannot share with anyone and also keep them away from everybody’s reach’! How many passwords can a sane mind remember is up for debate. You need passwords to access your  numerous bank accounts( Dad said dont keep everything in one place!), email, and social media accounts. You need them for virtually everything. And that’s not all. You also need to promptly change them at specific intervals, and the process of unlearning and relearning will continue. And herein lies another challenge. What will be my next password??!! How many times you have scratched your head recalling the password and risking an account lock only to retrieve it later with security question, which too at times delude, especially if it questions you wife’s nick name before marriage! So, it’s not surprising that we procrastinate changing the password regardless of regular warnings, till the last day, when it actually slaps us out!

I know of a colleague of mine who keeps forgetting his passwords with such alarming regularity that he felt frustrated most morning to unlock his PC till he discovered a password which he never forgets. He kept it simple: whydoialwaysforget.  Every time he is prompted for a change, he adds a numeric to it and since lived happily thereafter. At a city Mall, one friend of mine, pointing towards a lady, told nonchalantly, “There goes my password”. Though the rest remained unsaid, I presume it was his ex! One of my dear friend, a leftist philosopher, had once kept his password as left@34 in memory of the good old days! I’m not sure if he has changed it with changing times! But all are not born under a lucky star! At times, I have seen people run out of ideas and grapple as if they have exhausted their quota of passwords, which at times was his pet, wife, mother in law or maid at home! Each time one tries his luck, the ruthless machine turns it down. ‘You cannot use any of your earlier passwords’! Your innovation is challenged by AI (not American Indian!)

In one such case, a forgetful colleague of mine said helplessly “Kya password dena chaiye….” . You feel pity and share your last expired password to bail him out! However, a smart friend of mine discovered a unique password for his WiFi at home. Everytime there is a gathering at his home, guests looking to connect to his WiFi are told ‘firstgetmeacigartte’ which is his password. It ensures he gets a cigarette every time they ask for the password! Now that it became public, he changed it to ‘sorry’! I am sure this joy will be short-lived too. Days for such simple passwords are almost over.  Now you need a password that combines various elements such as numbers, upper and lower case letters, and symbols, in a way that is difficult for hackers or social engineers to compromise. Imagine someone, who fails to remember his password as basic as his anniversary date, is now expected to remember a password which is a combination of alpha numeric with special characters!

The learned say that passwords may soon become a thing of the past. Biometrics may just take over. Many online accounts are now requiring an alternative or additional authentication method. The roller coaster ride with passwords may soon phase out just like so many other things of yesteryear. We are the one and only ‘password generation’. In most cases, we forget the passwords we make for ourselves, except the very first we ever made. The first password in each of our lives has a story to tell. Isn’t it?!

Do you remember your first ever password? Think over it. It will bring a smile in your face.

Pic from internet