Digital Passwords – Social Media Nightmare
If you are in the world of digital marketing, you are probably signed up to a rather large number of social media networks and services. Then, keeping your various online passwords known, sorted and up-to-date is a veritable nightmare. If you listen to the advice of the powers that be, every password must be different, with upper case, lower case, numbers and symbols, and they should be at least 8 if not 14 characters long. Ugh!
Keeping track of them is one thing, but then updating — for example, one that is hooked up into many 3rd party applications — is another. Think Facebook. We are encouraged to change our passwords regularly. This is no less true for our favorite BIG BLUE social media network, Facebook, especially if you want to avoid being one of the 600,000 FB accounts hacked every single day. Then, all of a sudden, when you change the Facebook password, you start to get error messages on all your linked accounts. If I were Samantha (aka Elizabeth Montgomery) on Bewitched, I’d like to wiggle my nose and have all the accounts figure out that it is still me, with my legitimate Facebook account. Facebook Connect keeps it relatively transparent, but all the same, not all password changes are all the same.
Is your software version compatible?
A second common digital nightmare is the software version. If you have a document in excel, for example, that was created on one computer, with a particular version, there are far too many cases when you cannot open the same file on a different computer because of incompatible versions. Especially if you navigate between Mac and PC.
Of the two problems — password change or software version — which do you think is a worse plague on our existence? What are the best solutions?
The problem of changing passwords is really relevant. The very real need to seek ( create and remember) a password among dozens of other passwords, stresses the individual. However, it is necessary to counter the ugly brute forces out there.
Certainly, there are procedures to reduce this negative effect on users, such as password manager services, KeePass. However, in my opinion and in view of Moore's Law, the problem of password protection has no future. The capacity of human memory will not increase at the same progression as the IT microprocessor.
Regarding hesitating between Windows and Mac, you cannot give a unique solution. For example, the PC possesses the compatibility of versions. So Windows 7 can run on an obsolete PC, while Mac is deprived of this possibility. However, Mac has adopted the new technologies of protection against viruses and hackers.
Finally, the dilemma "password or passwind" is to be solved for each specific case and in the opportunity cost that the end user is willing to pay.