January 15 - Adventures in Technology

Today was our LAST day of orientations! The first was the orientation on how to use the email system, which I hope to never have to use again. The best part was the insanely strict password system. Here are the exact rules we were given for choosing a password:

1. It must be 8 characters
2. You may only use numbers, letters of the alphabet and/or special symbols.
3. At least one letter or symbol should be included in the first 6 characters.
4. At least two letters (upper case and lower case) should be included in the first 6 characters.
5. The first symbol should not be a slash mark.
6. It should not include the username. It should not include the username written in reverse.
7. It should not include words found in the dictionary
8. It should not include all or part of your name.
9. At least three characters in the new password should be different than the old password.

And on top of all this, the password has to be changed EVERY MONTH or your account is suspended.

I thought perhaps these were just guidelines for making a hack-proof password. But no. The computer system checks your potential password, and if it thinks that it might possibly fall into any of these characters, you get a NG next to that category and you have to try again. My friend noticed that the only way to remember a password like this is to write it down, which then makes it a whole lot easier to steal. I think I’m just going to write mine on my hands in defiance. For some reason the whole process ended up really upsetting me.

Also fun was the message that you get when you FINALLY come up with something that couldn’t possibly make any sense in any imaginable language: “The new password that you selected is fairly complex. However, please be cautious, as someone could discover it depending on the dictionary they use”. My password is a collection of random letters and symbols. I want to see that fucking dictionary.