Comments on: In a twisty maze of corridors, all alike

By: Lyle

Lyle — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:44:18 +0000

When it comes to these things, I just allow my browser to remember the password.

The browser (Firefox in my case) is also protected by a master password, and I sync those saved passwords to my home PC using FoxMarks.

Sure, it’s not the most super-duper secure way of remembering passwords, but it works for me. If I really wanted to have a secure reminder, I’d place them in an encrypted file in my encrypted USB Stick.

Either way, surely it’s easier to use some tool or other (hell, even to store it on your phone, if necessary – it doesn’t have to be in a) clear text or b) easily recognisable, so long as you know where it is) to remember the passwords than go through the same farce every month?

Sure it’d be nice to have a system that used sanity – but if there’s no sane system from the provider, I would say it’s down to the user to provide the sane system.

By: Caspar

Caspar — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:56:23 +0000

Oh I was only going to comment to say yes, the banner has gone for google reader visitors, I saw it previously but not today (though it never bothered me enough to moan about it).

By: Caspar

Caspar — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:55:49 +0000

I have the same problem. I reverted to paper billing as it was impossible to remember my login details. It’s not even a username I’d chose, it’s given me what I wanted plus lots of random numbers as my usual one is in use – by me!

You think they might even have an iPhone app to manage your account directly on the phone, with access locked to a 4 digit pin or something.

By: chrislunch

chrislunch — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:49:24 +0000

To be fair to them, if someone had your iPhone and you didn’t have it pin protected, or they’d got past this, they’d also have access to your email address, and account, so just providing information about the phone and email account aint really enough security.

Process still sucks though.

By: Cliff

Cliff — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:55:51 +0000

And you’d assume that the type of person who knows their account number would probably never forget their password in the first place, but hey thanks anyway.

By: Phil

Phil — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:19:49 +0000

You say you do this every month? The easiest thing to do would be to just remember your password. Or at least remember to put the account number somewhere easy to access: why not just email it to yourself?

By: Meg

Meg — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:50:56 +0000

OK, I should have got rid of it now.

Would anyone arriving here from google reader mind awfully just checking?

By: Meg

Meg — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:42:56 +0000

Curses. That shouldn’t happen. Sorry about that.

[frantic tinkering ensues]

By: John Handelaar

John Handelaar — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:32:03 +0000

For the record, I didn’t come here from a Google search, I came here from Google Reader. So the exhortation to subscribe to your RSS feed is a little annoying…

By: Phil Gyford

Phil Gyford — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:44:20 +0000

To make it more annoying (for me) is that I signed up for O2 broadband and had to create a second account — there was no way I could use the same account for another service.

Did I say second account? I meant third. When I bought my iPhone I apparently already had an account on o2.co.uk (maybe it was created when I signed up to be alerted when the iPhone became available) but this couldn’t be used for some reason.

So I now have three different log-ins for the same bloody website.

By: Meg

Meg — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:43:13 +0000

Thanks, Gordon – it’s VERY old (that shirt, office and haircut date it back to early 2001, I think) but I thought it was appropriate here.

There aren’t enough animated gifs on the web, IMO.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:24:58 +0000

I DID have a comment about this but I’m currently mesmerised by your animated GIF. Brilliant!

By: lomokev

lomokev — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:01:36 +0000

if only every one used openID
its all about password repository for me:
http://www.pomola.com/products_passwordrepository/passwordrepository.html