I disagree. Car manufacturers have been constantly finding ways to make our driving experience safer, and less stressful. Whilst it still requires some level of co-ordination, skill and concentration to drive a car, it is far safer and far easier to drive a car now than at any time in the past. And companies are working on ways to make it even more so.
Likewise the IT industry has to find better ways to keep things secure rather than relying on changing the entire human race's behaviour. Because the latter is a losing proposition - it always has been and always will be. Constant whinging by *IT Professionals* has done nothing to change that fact in the past 40 years. Passwords may have worked when users only had to remember 5. These days it's starting to break down. So, what do to? Microsoft tried CardSpace, and building password memory systems in Windows and IE. Wasn't entirely successful. Some companies are trying federated identity systems (e.g. "login with your Facebook account"). Maybe the government should just issue people with smart cards (whether or not they are tied to your actual identity - at least they would be relatively impossible to duplicate, with today's technology). The constant whinging about programmers, users and everyone else, on this list, is so tiring. No one is discussing solutions. Telling the entire population of the developed world to "suck it up" is not a solution IMHO. FWIW IT admins here seem to have no compunction re. posting the products they use, the configuration they have, the AV they have installed, their password complexity rules, their administration techniques, and the companies they work for and when they are out-of-the-office etc. It's rank hypocrisy. Cheers Ken -----Original Message----- From: Kurt Buff [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, 25 August 2012 3:15 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: OT : Humor only an Admin can enjoy. On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 8:57 PM, Ken Schaefer <[email protected]> wrote: > You work in IT admin - passwords are something you deal with every day. And so do all who have more than one online account for most anything. > Probably bank tellers have few(er) issues remembering multiple bank > account numbers, but I think that most people would struggle to > remember more than 5. Luckily most of us doesn't have 5 bank account > numbers we need to memorise. > > Tax accountants can probably remember > >> For these people, I will play the world's smallest violin. > > Why did you feel the need to make this type of comment? > If creating many passwords is a problem that lay people have, then the > proliferation of requirements to create accounts and corresponding > passwords is something we should be aware of (and perhaps worried > about). Not something to dismiss as an unfounded whinge. It is an unfounded whinge. The world is a complex and sometimes dangerous place, and the online world is more so. All of us, users included, need to suck it up, realize that what we do has consequences, and that practicing safe computing is like practicing safe driving or safely performing any other task - it requires concentration, planning and some intelligence. You can't do it on autopilot. There are tools for to help deal with that complexity - and as IT professionals we can certainly help folks by pointing out those tools, in this case things such as PasswordSafe, Keepass, LastPass, or other tools to manage the task. But the need remains to change passwords, and to keep them strong enough to foil the malicious, or at least limit the damage. Kurt ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
