Passwords

Last week the Webmaster reminded me, rather sternly I felt, that I had not posted anything since February.  Having been duly reprimanded, I am now making amends.

Wherever you go on the web you have to enter a password.  Yes, that wonderful word which give you access to just about anything - provided the computer at the other end recognises your password!  And that's where the problems begin.  I shall explain...

Last Thursday I wanted to make an appointment at the doctor's and, having signed up to this facility, and having ordered repeat prescriptions without any problems, I accessed the website, put in my user name and the password, expecting to be logged in.  That's when my optimism left me.

Your user name or password has not been recognised.  From the flashing cursor and empty field it was the password which had not been recognised.  I tried again.  Your user name or password has not been recognised.  Several tries later it was obvious I wasn't going to get access however nice I tried to be.

Next morning I rang the surgery, and was given a new password.  No explanation as to why the old one hadn't worked.  While I was on the phone I made the appointment, which I felt somewhat defeated the purpose, but there you are.

This isn't the first time it's happened to me.  When shopping on-line Visa Verification sometimes comes into play and you have to enter a password.  On six separate occasions this wonderful system refused to accept my password and I had to create a new one.  Last time it happened I got stroppy and put in the password it had just refused to accept.  D'you know what it said: You have used this password before, choose a new one.  Now if it knew I'd used it before why did it need another one? 

We're told we must never write down our pin numbers or passwords in case someone steals them.  So if we mere mortals are expected to remember passwords, why can't computers? 

If anyone can explain why computers forget passwords, please let me know.  I'm fed up having to come up with a new one because some unseen computer is having a senior moment!