4 October 2005
the end of an era
I finally did it. I changed my eBay password after seven years, six months and four days.
What was my password for those 392 weeks? 'password'. I know it's a really, really bad password, but had eBay not been annoying me with a page informing me of my bad choice of passwords for these last couple months, I'd probably still have 'password' today, and for who knows how many more weeks.
Seven years ago I had many a password, and I often used variations of the word 'password'. Sometimes I'd substitute numbers for the letters or reverse them, but eBay never instituted mandatory password changes like the university or anywhere else did. If any site ever were to introduce such a simple security method to so many people, it would be eBay*, but the best they do is apparently mere pestering.
But I'm all secure now, I suppose. Oddly enough, in all of those 65,800 hours I never had any problem at all, even with a password that must be in the top five easiest to guess.
Passwords are such silly things anyway. More often than not they are used to provide the illusion of security, not reality. Rarely do I stoop to putting my password on a Post-it note as others I've seen have done, but I've slipped up in other ways, not the least of which was using 'password' as one. I also regularly use the same three or four passwords in different places, and sometimes I use all letters or numbers without any punctuation or changes in case. And you know what? Only once, ever, have I had a problem other than merely forgetting my password.
In that case somebody logged onto an application at work with my username and the default password we all know. It's such a dumb thing anyway, since I need to log onto a computer with the application installed to use that application. Anyway, nothing bad came of it, and I promptly changed my password to something less well-known. I suppose if that is my only slip-up I haven't done too badly.
And now I've got eBay off my case, too.
* I am not aware of what America Online's password changing policies are, or if they even have any. Nor do I know which service can claim more active users.
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I had a user today who had their password written down on a post it note - however I still got it wrong as their writing was so bad, what I read as zoos was actually 2005!
The crazy thing was that they wanted to change their password back to the company standard (everyone has the same password!) but were not able to because of password history - so she wrote it down on a postitnote for everyone.