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[humor] The Password Nightmare

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I've tagged this post as "humor" because in the past some of the more dour members of this forum have failed to recognize my previous and admittedly feeble attempts at being funny. I've also posted this in Schweb's Lounge as another hint that it's not to be taken too seriously.

1Password keeps nagging me about the fact that they have detected over 900 passwords and websites that need my attention:

Screenshot 2019-08-21 06.30.37.jpg

I find this task to be tedious, boring and incredibly maddening. How did the IT world let us get into this mess in the first place?

I only have sufficient patience to work on this for about an hour at a time and no more than once a week. This morning I spent an hour and only managed to clear about ten problems. If I continue to do ten per week (not likely) it will take me nearly two years to finish.

The problems that crop up are wondrously varied. In some cases the 1Password entry is outdated and when I attempt to change the password the website informs me that I've entered the wrong "old" password. Sometimes I can find the correct old password in my Keychain. I try to be diligent in keeping 1Password up to date when I use a Safari suggested password, but clearly I have not been diligent enough. In come cases I have to go through the tedious and failure-prone "lost password" procedure.

Sometimes the website presents one of those confusing captcha puzzles. These baffle me. Is the pole which supports a traffic signal part of the signal? Is that scrap of white at the corner of the square part of the pedestrian crossing or just a photographic artifact? I usually require multiple attempts to solve the captcha puzzle. (I've never been much good at puzzles.)

In other cases the Safari generated password is insufficiently complex. For example, my web hosting company rejected the following:

byrrEj-fyrvah-docfy7

I feel comfortable posting it here because I didn't use it and hope that Safari will not generate this same password for someone else. In this case I ended up using 1Password's password generator to create a password that is 22 characters long. It had to be that big for the website to accept it.

In some cases the subject website is long gone so I can safely just delete the 1Password entry. (Remember Northwest Airlines?)

I've written this mainly to vent my frustration. I feel better now.
 

pigoo3

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(Remember Northwest Airlines?)

Ohh yes. I used to fly to Asia on Northwest.:)

Still have my frequent flyer card around here somewhere! Lol

- Nick
 
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Ohh yes. I used to fly to Asia on Northwest.:)

They were quite good. I lived on Saipan for many years. NW had direct flights to Tokyo and then on to Asia. For many years flying Saipan to Bangkok involved an overnight stay at Narita. NW put you up in their crew hotel, the Raddison, and give you two free meals to boot. Back when it was fun to fly….

More follies:

On the Bombich Software page (Carbon Copy Cloner) I logged in with the password copied from my Keychain. But, when I went to the change password page it told me that my "old" password was wrong. How could it be right when I logged in but wrong when I want to change my password? I've submitted a support request.

On the Divers Alert Network page I searched high and low for the password change section. Never found it. I've sent email asking where it is.
 
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Back when it was fun to fly….


And you didn't even need any password to login and confirm your flight... ;-)

PS: Thanks for the humorous post except for the fact it's mostly true.



- Patrick
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RavingMac

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I used to hope passwords would disappear when biometrics was 1st being talked about, then we got fingerprint scanners and realized they were worse than passwords.
Unless I update my fingerprints on a regular basis, Touch ID quickly becomes useless on my iOS devices (it was even worse at work before I retired). Apparently I was destined to be an International Jewel Thief, not only are my prints difficult to read, but they seem to change constantly . . .

Anyway, that is my vent, plus I also remember NWA and TWA FWIW
 

Slydude

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Hated to see TWA depart. I was flying between home and Iowa on a regular basis at the time. The flight usually ran through St. Luis which wasn't a bad airport as far as being manageable for me. Over time the flights started running through DFW which is a much larger airport physically and can be difficult to navigate if your flight only has say an hour or ao before the connecting flight leaves.

Heck, I wasn't a big fan of the name change from Pan Am.
 

chscag

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I used to work for TWA out of their Hq at JFK airport in New York. It was one of those times between enlistments in the USAF. Not a bad job but the commute from our apartment out on Long Island to JFK was a nightmare. BTW, the TWA Hq was right across the way from the Pan Am Hq building at JFK.
 
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In other cases the Safari generated password is insufficiently complex. For example, my web hosting company rejected the following:
byrrEj-fyrvah-docfy7


Hmmm...??? And yet when it's used to test at a password checker site produces...

Screen Shot 2019-08-21 at 9.27.33 AM.png

I guess your web hosting company is playing things super safe!!!!



- Patrick
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Raz0rEdge

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The ironic thing is that some websites that are MEANT to have strong security don't because of poor website design (and designers). That isn't to blame the intention of strong security, it's just that some people do it very poorly and aid in frustration of people.
 
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Hmmm...??? And yet when it's used to test at a password checker site produces...
I guess your web hosting company is playing things super safe!!!!

I guess. The site didn't say exactly why the password failed their test. It might have been because of the hyphens. The password generated by 1Password is letters and numbers only.
 
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They may also require a symbol from a set they prefer, such as #$%&* etc, and not "-".
 
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I guess. The site didn't say exactly why the password failed their test. It might have been because of the hyphens.


Hmmm... yet I have been led to believe that using such characters increases the value and cracking time.

More likey due to some lazy incompetent programmer at the particular site and attempting on protecting his a** and doesn't know any better!!!



- Patrick
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They may also require a symbol from a set they prefer, such as #$%&* etc, and not "-".

This is what their website says:

Tips for a good password
Use both upper and lowercase characters
Include at least one symbol (# $ ! % & etc...)
Don't use dictionary words

I guess a hyphen doesn't count as a "symbol" because, otherwise, the Safari generated password looks like it complies.

The password that was accepted has numbers, upper and lower case characters and a single "@".
 
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More Follies:

Bombich (Carbon Copy Cloner) support suggested that since I couldn't change my password on their site I should use the "forgot password" procedure. I did that and used the Safari suggested password. I told Safari to replace the existing password with the new one. Then I went in to the Keychain to copy the new password so I could paste it into 1Password. But, it wasn't there! Safari failed to update the Keychain. So, now I have no record of the new password.

It's little things like this that make the whole fix-your-passwords process and exercise in frustration.
 
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This is what their website says:



I guess a hyphen doesn't count as a "symbol" because, otherwise, the Safari generated password looks like it complies.

The password that was accepted has numbers, upper and lower case characters and a single "@".
I think that hyphen in the display is not actually part of the password, it's there for us humans to be able to maybe remember the password. Three sets of 6 is much easier than 18 with no breaks. I seem to remember copying a Safari password from the keychain to 1password and it came without the hyphen. (Or maybe I just imagined it, it's been a while.)
 
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I still can't figure out just when 1Password is able to detect that you're updating a password. Sometimes when I change a password both 1Password and the Keychain recognize the fact and ask me if I want to update the current entry or add a new one. But, sometimes 1Password seems oblivious. And, as the Bombich Incident shows, sometimes the Keychain doesn't get updated and there's no way to find out just what password Safari suggested.
 
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I think that hyphen in the display is not actually part of the password, it's there for us humans to be able to maybe remember the password. Three sets of 6 is much easier than 18 with no breaks. I seem to remember copying a Safari password from the keychain to 1password and it came without the hyphen. (Or maybe I just imagined it, it's been a while.)

I just looked at a recently updated password. The hyphens are there in both the Keychain and 1Password entries.

aaaaAa-aaaan-aaaaa

So, one upper case character, two "symbols" and one numeric.
 
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But not one of the "approved" symbols.
 
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aaaaAa-aaaan-aaaaa

So, one upper case character, two "symbols" and one numeric.


Really...??? I guess I missed it but maybe that's due to the new hearing-aids I just got fitted with today....!!! :Smirk:

Maybe it's automatically hidden... sort of as an extra swcurity measure...???


- Patrick
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