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A frightening experience

By Tim Wood

Originally published in The Columbia Daily Herald, Oct. 18, 1998

Last week I heard about a frightening experience.

Someone forgot the PIN number for their bank card.

The person was attempting to pay for groceries with one of those cards acts like a credit card and also works as an ATM card. The checkout person asked this person to input their PIN number. The customer couldn't remember the number and had to write a check.

I sympathize fully. I, too, am in a state of numerical overload.

As a child, I feared the day I would have to memorize my Social Security number. Now, that's the least of my worries. I know that one by heart (I think), but there are a host of other numbers.

We live with numbers all of our lives, be they addresses, phone numbers, student numbers and other types of numerical tags. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for my Internet surfing. Outside of the Internet, things aren't too bad - just two PIN numbers to remember for bank cards, codes for two different security systems, and computer passwords for home and work.

The Internet has compounded the problem, though. I ride heard on four e-mail accounts and one on-line discussion forum. Each e-mail account requires its own password. The discussion forum has a unique name and password, and The Daily Herald "subscribers only" section requires a password. I should remember that one, since I get to make it up each month.

Occasionally I buy items on-line - usually just things I can't get anywhere in Columbia. Each on-line merchant wants me to register (and give my life history) and, of course, they want a user name and password.

Sometimes they let you pick your own password, but at other times they assign one. Remembering passwords would be simple if one used the same one all of the time. But if a dishonest person were to get my password, it would be open season on me in cyberspace. So, I mix up my user names and passwords.

Some services offer means of remembering your password. A popular method is to give your mother's maiden name. For that reason, my brother cautioned me not to post on the Internet a nice story I had written about my mother - or at least to take out her maiden name.

With all of this number overload, it had to happen: I forgot a password. It wasn't critical; it was for an account with an on-line store. They had a special deal going and I wanted to take advantage of it.

I tried every password I've ever used. No luck. I gave up, but at least I had avoided spending some money.

People use different ways to create and remember PIN numbers and passwords. Musicians relate numbers to music. I remember phone numbers of relatives by relating them to things which interest me. My mother's phone number starts out with the designation of a popular airliner. A brother's number begins with an electronic device I once used in a hobby project.

Writing passwords down seems to be another simple solution. But if someone got the list, you would be in trouble. I have written down several of my Internet passwords and hid them.

But that raises another problem: what if I forget where the list is hidden? Hmm. There's always the safe deposit box, but then I would have to keep up with the key.

As the old joke goes, memory is the first thing to go, but I've forgotten what the second thing is. Perhaps I'll get a handle on all of my passwords and numbers. If nothing else, there's my mother's maiden name. Oops, I forgot it - and just what was the airplane that her phone number started with?

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