My Electronic Nightmare
Are you anything like me, forever grateful for the amazing technology so readily available that allows me to get a dearth of information just at the touch of my computer? I pay my bills online, check my credit card balances, keep an eye on my son’s grades, receive and write my emails etc. etc. In fact I run my life from my computer. However recently it is all starting to give me a headache, and no, not just from spending long hours staring at the screen, but rather because of the need to remember ad nauseam the answers to all the questions asked in order to verify myself as myself.
I do understand that security is an absolute necessity, especially when dealing with one’s finances, not that a robber would be in hog heaven if he made his way into my accounts! Rather I think he would be merely assuming more unwanted debt than cash flow. Be that as it may, I do try to use a different password for every account that I have. Some of these passwords I might add are of the oddest nature because with so many people logging on many of the easier words are already taken! However the problem is, with the list growing exponentially every day I am having a hard time keeping track of them all. I do maintain a list, but the question is where should I keep the list? In order for it to be readily available I could print it out, or keep it on my computer – but then am I opening myself up to say a burglar, or a hacker or God forbid a virus? I could be being overly paranoid, but something must be up since when I logged on to register my son for his SAT’s the site asked me for so much information in order to verify my authenticity that I started to wonder what sort of people would want to hack into the site and see what dates and where a 17yr old boy was going to sit his exams? I also believe that if all the information gathered by these sites were to be compiled, they would have a startling amount of information albeit much of it pretty trivial (e.g. my first pet’s name) about me… I wonder is Big Brother out there?
I just wish that with all this technology somebody could come up with an easier solution. Say if I could merely scan my fingerprint for recognition, not my voice, because it is not reliable seeing that on days of ultimate hysteria it can go up an octave or two. Just something, that would not require such a great deal of thought, because truly my brain is just about fried!
Add comment September 15th, 2008