
I don’t believe I am alone in having password
problems. A firm I consult for, requires
a change every three months and has common restrictions: Capital and lower case
letters, numbers, symbols, and the dreaded “you cannot use a password used more
recently than your last ten changes.”
A recent count showed that I have more than fifty
active passwords, many requiring similar restrictions. For years I have had them stored on my desk
(not a bad hiding place, since I seem to be the only one who can find anything
on my desk), but some are in “housing groups like Quicken, where one password
gets access to several others. Mosby in
the WSJ reviewed several Apps that can do that, but they all cost about $100
per year, and I was financially dissuaded.
Access to accounts by knowing a password, or clues
to changing a password have recently been overtaken by concerns over maintaining
privacy. At the root of those concerns
are companies engaged in data-brokering, where not only is online information
collected, but it is analyzed and marketed to companies who value your interest
profile and social position. One of
those companies that has interest as we gear up for a midterm election is
called Politico.

In some fashion so have the policies of the NSA.
A response to concerns about the NSA has been for
some companies to attempt to reassure their customers that information shared
with their company will not be passed through to the Federal Government. The means for this reassurance has been a novel
approach, taking a lesson from the traditional Canary in the Coal Mine where, actually
or not, canaries preceded the miners to detect poisonous gases in the mines.
These companies would skirt the federal restriction to providing what
information they passed on by posting a disclaimer that “The company has
received no request from Federal authority to provide them any information from
our records.” This process has been
termed a Warrant Canary Statement.

The goal is admirable and financially significant,
since these data are sold to educators to improve efficiency, but the very
breadth of the project, currently encompassing more than 10 million children
over a period from pre-school through graduation, scares me a little.
I am definitely going to be following this closer
than before.
I don’t know about you, but I’m a little confused
about a path to citizenship through joining the military. I’m going to do a little research on that and
will be sharing my findings on my next Post.
I hope you will find it interesting.