Lawrence Don Elysyn
We live, it seems, in perilous times. We are reminded constantly that crime is increasing, basic values are breaking down, people shoot at one another on the highway, and men are sneaking onto airplanes with weird and dangerous plans in mind.
Security checks at county airports are becoming more extensive than those at maximum-level penitentiaries. Worms and bugs and viruses and all other unpleasantness daily invade our precious computers. The stock market has more ups and downs than a roller coaster. No one is safe.
To protect us, we have devised certain security measures. We post guards, increase police forces, render our electronic detection devices more sensitive, squirrel away our resources, and (last and certainly least) use passwords.
Until a few years back, the term password referred to a word that had to be told to a guard to gain access to a secret hideaway. That hideaway could have been a military installation, a nest of spies, or a gin joint. No matter. It was secret, and only those who knew the word got in. They passed. Unless you were a two-timing military spy with a thirst for after-hours entertainment, you probably didn’t have to memorize more than one or two passwords in your whole life. My mother lived to be almost 100, and I don’t think she ever had to learn a single password in her entire time on this planet.
Then, something terrible happened. Computers became popular. Tons of stuff you didn’t want anyone else to fool with was put on them, and the problem arose: How do you guarantee that only the right person gets to the right stuff? Someone came up with a solution: the password. Tragically, the solution has become highly popular. In some offices, every system demands one. You password into your own machine. You then had to password again into your e-mail. A third password is required to get you to your electronic time sheet. A fourth one lets you click into a special work program. A fifth is needed to … etc., etc., etc. There are some people in my office that require six passwords just to start their day —- no kidding. And not only that, but each one of these passwords has to be constructed in accordance with a different set of rules. Most of these rules are quite evidently made up by diabolical sadists and raving lunatics. “For your password, you can enter anything you want, as long as it has only six characters consisting of two numerics followed by four alphas and that no numeric or alpha is repeated. Of course, the first numeric cannot be zero and the alphas lowercase L, O, I, or J cannot be used, especially on Tuesdays or after a full moon.”
“Constructing your password is simple. Use letters only, eight in all, alternating between lower- and uppercase fonts. Ensure that no letter is used twice and that no vowel is used in the last position, unless, of course, you happen to be Italian.” You are also told to memorize all your passwords. “Do not write them down,” the mavens warn us. If you write them down, “people who shouldn’t know” would then know and, of course, they shouldn’t and so, don’t. Of course, it takes a memory like that of the proverbial elephant with a steel trap to remember that password WxT1X22R is good for your email but xxNT11SW1R is the right one for your special writing program. To add insult to injury, you are also commanded each month to change your passwords — all of them. How do you do that? Follow the easy instructions that will inevitably lead to your being disconnected from the entire system and declared Person Non Grata as well as Suspected Terrorist.
This is perhaps why I keep an old machine at home that is wholly unconnected to anything except my own creativity. I open it by flicking a switch and clicking on a few items. I close it by clicking on a few items and flicking a switch. Freedom.
Lawrence is the senior text editor at Bombardier Transportation in St. Bruno, Quebec, Canada. He has been with Bombardier 14 years. He is married (to a lady from Dallas) and has three grown children and two grandchildren.