Losing my keys
In the North Country we’re pretty casual about locking up. If someone really wants to steal my ’97 Corolla–have at it. Homes, sheds, boats–mostly unlocked. Most of us use Brokefolks Home Security–squalor is better than a silent alarm. And if you happen to lose your keys, you can usually get in through a window (and entertain your neighbors) or short across the starter motor solenoid with a screwdriver (if you happened to hang onto that ’65 Chevy laundry van).
But the online world has no room for the casual approach to security. Locked out is locked out. Which wouldn’t be a problem, were I a casual surfer. But if each of my many usernames and passwords were physical keys, I’d need a bigger ring than a high-school janitor. Email accounts, secure login sites, ftp domain credentials, Facebook, ecommerce sites, electronic banking, blog IDs, social network user accouts, network logins, device logins, voicemail accounts–Aye-yi-yi!
Do I write them down in a little black book? Do I have my web browser store them? Is my computer secure? My identity? Curious that in this postmodern society, we hold our information more tightly to our bosoms than our dearest possessions. I could keep all the supersecret information in an encrypted text file on my computer, but then I’d need a another password to retrieve the encryption key. Where would I keep that password? There must be an app for that–if I could only remember my login to the iTunes store.
I know this problem very well! Many of the websites I have to use to do my job require unique, random passwords and some of them make me change those passwords on a regular basis. Then there are all the passwords I need for my personal digital life. I have resorted to an app on my smart phone that stores them all under only one password, and have shared that password with the keepers of my digital legacy, so that they can better tidy up the loose ends if something happens to me.