I’ve got more passwords than the KGB. I have a password at the public library. I can reserve a book from home now, but only if I do it in secret, through a library account that I can only use if I enter my fourteen-digit library card number and the correct password. Besides that, every couple of years I have to provide proof of my identity.
For the first fifty-odd years of my life no one cared too much about who I was at all; now it seems my library card makes me a prime target for identity theft. But then, think of the havoc terrorists could wreak on the world if they were able to log on to my online library account and reserve whatever book they wanted.
I know, I know. There are good reasons for security precautions. There are bad reasons, too. In Ontario we now have to provide official identification when we vote – or rather, when we vote in person. If you vote by mail you don’t have to. Apparently the danger to the public interest from voter fraud is neatly balanced by the revenue it generates for Canada Post.
But the government also mails you a card, with your name and address on it, which you take to the polling station. Why do we need to provide further identification? Are they afraid we’re going to get mugged for these cards on the way to the polls? It’s not like we’re wearing signs reading I’m going to vote and can’t fight worth a damn.
Whatever your opinion is of the merits of passwords, whether you think all passwords are necessary or, like me, have the correct view of them, you must admit that life has changed considerably over the last twenty-five years or so. In 1980 the only secret number I had to remember was the combination to the lock on my locker in the basement of the building I lived in. Now I spend my days logging in to accounts. And waiting while other people log into accounts while I wait in line behind them.
When I got a letter in the old days, I didn’t have to enter a password to open it, even though in getting it to me the post office had left it vulnerable at several points to interception by the nefariously minded or the royally mounted. In fact, we still require no password to open letters, even though the mail is no better protected. You could open one of those drop boxes for letter carriers with a can opener.
I suppose the problem is that the criminals are becoming as computer-bound as we are. They spend so much time entering passwords and checking e-mail that they just don’t have time to go out and bribe a letter carrier to lend them his or her keys for a few hours. So they end up having to conduct their business through the internet, trying to get e-mail recipients to go to phony websites and innocently enter their credit card numbers – and passwords.
The price of convenience is eternal inconvenience, it seems. In the old days, if I couldn't find a book I wanted at the bookstore, I'd ask the bookstore to order it for me, then go back a week or so later to pick it up.
If I can't find a book I want in the bookstore these days, I search a website or two, find the book, log into my account with my password (if I have one) or create an account (if I don’t), fill out forms, supply my credit card number and the special four-digit code, click a button, print out the receipt, log out, then sit back and wait a week or so for the book to turn up.
I have saved the time I would have spent previously going back to the bookstore. Time is money, and money talks, and talk is cheap, etc. The time I save by using my password I can now use for productive activities, like waiting for hackers to steal my credit card information off the bookstore website. Or making erroneous entries on Wikipedia. Or sitting hunched over my computer, entering more passwords.
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