The ATM machine said, "Good Morning Mr. Sampson, you're looking well today. Please type in you Personal Identification Number"

XXXXXX

The ATM machine said, Sorry, Mr. Forgetful Idiot! That is not the correct password. Please slap yourself three times around the head and then apply for a new card and number as we are keeping this one. Have a nice day!

Today, passwords and security codes provide instant access to almost every walk of life! They are now the keys to doors that would otherwise violently slam in our faces, the means to enter the otherside!

Looking back in time; The first passwords (apart from those required to gain entry into the back room of the local Mafia club and the padlock on the suitcase) were those of the ATM (automatic bank machines). A four or six digit PIN number to be entered and then the money plops out! This was fine and dandy, one account, one number drawn from some memorable occasion - saved waiting in those long queues inside the bank! Then one fine day, the single account became two as the building societies became banks, then the savings account at the post office decided that pin numbers would be useful, and then to beat it all Internet Banking came piling onto the scene. Today, Passwords are now required for Banking, switch cards, visa cards, store cards, petrol cards and hundreds of other cards that are so often found in dusty wallets, drawers, cookie jars and washing machines the world over!

Passwords are also required increasingly on the Internet. Get a web site and you have real problems! I have an email account with Yahoo, one with AOL and many others with dozens of other providers (they were all free at the time) and then I have a web site (well three in fact) and they all require passwords. And then there are discussion groups! Wow, each one requires a USERNAME, each one requires a password and many of them also ask you to have a handle, a name to be recognized by others. Not your real name of course! I have at the last count 362 different and current usernames, 463 different and current passcodes or passwords and 152 different and often forgotten handles. I have basically filled my brain up with a whole pile of useless words, numbers and junk, a brain that could otherwise be used to remember all the telephone numbers in my local directory or better still to learn Japanese. Life though dictates that we need these security codes and keys, without them doors are shut and we become isolated from the world around us!

The first memorable passwords to choose were easy in the form of some remembered birthday or house number, to be used with continued success. Unfortunately, spammers and mass-marketers started to find these codes through underhand research, resulting in instant access to the lives of their victims! The banks, in an attempt to ward off claims warned people to choose passwords that bore no relation to anything important. "Choose a pin number from thin air, not your birthday". I find though that it is not easy to remember a pincode that is nothing but plain old number, but overtime I have forced myself to remember strange numbers in set sequence as a matter of necessity!

Then the warnings came out, from all corners of security, that using the same password for more than one service could cause extreme problems and a heyday for the opportunist who is looking for fools. So it was no longer a case of regurgitating one password - to recite the Inner London telephone directory might be simpler! I find that I can remember most of my 463 passwords, most of the time, I just can't remember which password is for which service. Typically I stand at an ATM and punch in my pin code, it tells me to go away and if I put the wrong code in again it will eat my card up. I then realize that the code that I am punching into the pad is actually that for the gym club after hours access! So what is my number for this bank and this account? Which number could it be out of a possible 463 and even then have I got it right the right way round?

In an attempt to simplify the process many people started to write their numbers down (including me), knowing that otherwise they would forget them in time. "Well, for heavens sake, I only use that pass code once a year - how am I supposed to remember it", can be heard echoing all over the world. So the next step was to secretly write these codes down and hide the slip of paper in some weird and wonderful place, the hidy-hole that nobody will ever find. Codes are pasted under ornaments, behind beds, on little scraps of paper in the garage, in drawers, closets and boxes and in every conceivable place imaginable, including the letter box!. Unfortunately, like most, I could never remember where I had hidden them! It also quickly came to light that unwanted guests managed to find these slips of paper with simplistic ease, and with the soon after appropriated credit card could empty bank accounts before the clock struck one!

Ah, so why not encode the code in a series of other codes using a system that only the original coder knows how to decode? Around the world and at any one moment in time there are hundreds of thousands of people scratching their heads over a pile of numbers and letters that they themselves created. Thousands of amateur coders having failed in their missions are unable to decode the code that they had intricately designed all that time ago.

For those with computers a solution became possible with the advent of the "password program". A clever piece of software that could remember hundreds of passwords and usernames: to regurgitate them upon request. But then of course hackers and unseen computer information thieves found ways to gain access and not only to see your passwords but to change them to. And you, unawares of this entry into your private domain, find your emails have all been read by some unknown, that your bank account shows that you have fully utilized the 5000 pound overdraft and that you now owe Visa and American Express some amazing amount of hard currency that you do not have and never will. Oh, and do not think for a minute that your store cards are free of purchases or that your partner is not going to find out about the secret email accounts you have setup! In short, this piece of software is no longer a viable solution for those with something to lose.

Oh, yes! Let us not forget that passwords should be changed frequently, at least once a month!

Impossible you say? Well, I must admit the thought of having just committed to memory over 600 passwords, numbers and codes and then having to throw them all out and input new ones every month is not my idea of fun. Impossible in fact!

On a more positive note; Most people whose bank accounts show zero admit to having given their password to some other person! The majority of theft from ATM machines and banks is through friends giving their supposed friends the number of their account in a loose moment. It is not as one would assume from people who have stolen the number from the hidden pocket in your wallet or the hacker through the telephone cable, although they do come in a close second.

Hey; what about finger print identity instead of passwords. This would make life a lot easier! Just put the thumb on a little touch pad and gain instant access to everything. One thumb, no need to remember where it is, if somebody steals it the fact will most likely be noticed immediately and there is no need to change it every month or to hide it in some obscure place.

Move on technology as at present my head is filled to busting with useless information!