Archive for December, 2007
Nine pages of account information, and counting
The first step to recovery from any counterproductive behavior is to admit you have a problem. The bad news is that I have a problem in the area of username/password management. The good news is that my problem is not my fault. The problem is a result of just the way things are.
In my house (can’t tell you where), I have two lists of usernames/passwords for the various accounts that have crept into my life in the last ten years. The first list is somewhat long in the tooth, and is four printed pages. I don’t know why I keep that list around, but I do. It even has a number of yellow stickies on it with account information that found its way onto one. The second list contains account information that is more recent. Printed, this list is five pages long. So I have nine printed pages of account information output. Nine pages. Of course, the recent list is encrypted. Heaven help me if I misplace or forget the passphrase.
Unfortunately, account information proliferation shows few signs of improving soon. Microsoft’s Passport and Sun’s Liberty Alliance (remember these gems from way back?) were supposed to solve this problem, but for various reasons never did.
As for contemporary solutions, it looks like OpenID is gaining notoriety, but I don’t see it on sites that I visit with great regularity: Google’s gmail and Amazon come to mind. Come to think of it, I have never seen an OpenID-supported web site in all my travels. And I like to think I get around. Unfortunately, I don’t think we know much about security exploits against systems like OpenID for the simple fact that the world has no widespread experience with them.
Something’s gotta give in this space. I know I am not the only one keeping passwords in flat files, and mine cannot be the only list that is showing signs of unbounded growth. But specifically what to do about I do not know. But I know I have a problem.
Internet Evolution gets it
Since its debut and addition to my reading list a few months ago, I have been a follower of Internet Evolution (IE). Bill St. Arnaud introduced me to the list (for grid and cloud computing considerations), and he and the founders have kept me reading.
A picture of the founding and contributing editors is emerging that I can get on board with: a sense of charming contrarianism, or perhaps better yet, a sense of Keepin’ It Real. Many posts are good and informative, but some clearly shine through, beaming the values of the founders. It started with Stephen Saunders’s Tokelau eulogy, seconded by his note on Facebook’s time-sink culture and Web2.0 sites that really matter, compounded by Nicole Ferraro’s irreverent account of how officially difficult it is to speak with the man who invented the web, and wraps recently with a vote for humans over the machine in a piece by Andrew Keen. What I most admire about these posts and authors is that they make thoughtful, sensible points without being mean, without being snarky.
Like a great many knowledge workers, I, too, have dozens of feeds in my bloglines reader that I dutifully read each morning. Internet Evolution is shaping up to be one of the most refreshing. Somewhere in the water at IE is a Mencken-like antidote to the cult thinking that the Internet is all there is to life, that digital relationships trump their wet chemistry counterparts, that the Internet makes us happy, that the Internet fulfills our every need. This from someone who lives on the Internet every day, making a good living thereon, and loves it as much as the next guy. But let’s keep it all in perspective, shall we? The Internet serves us - not the other way around. And thanks to IE for reminding us of it in their small corner of the world.
Internet Evolution gets it
Since its debut and addition to my reading list a few months ago, I have been a follower of Internet Evolution (IE). Bill St. Arnaud introduced me to the list (for grid and cloud computing considerations), and he and the founders have kept me reading.
A picture of the founding and contributing editors is emerging that I can get on board with: a sense of charming contrarianism, or perhaps better yet, a sense of Keepin’ It Real. Many posts are good and informative, but some clearly shine through, beaming the values of the founders. It started with Stephen Saunders’s Tokelau eulogy, seconded by his note on Facebook’s time-sink culture and Web2.0 sites that really matter, compounded by Nicole Ferraro’s irreverent account of how officially difficult it is to speak with the man who invented the web, and wraps recently with a vote for humans over the machine in a piece by Andrew Keen. What I most admire about these posts and authors is that they make thoughtful, sensible points without being mean, without being snarky.
Like a great many knowledge workers, I, too, have dozens of feeds in my bloglines reader that I dutifully read each morning. Internet Evolution is shaping up to be one of the most refreshing. Somewhere in the water at IE is a Mencken-like antidote to the cult thinking that the Internet is all there is to life, that digital relationships trump their wet chemistry counterparts, that the Internet makes us happy, that the Internet fulfills our every need. This from someone who lives on the Internet every day, making a good living thereon, and loves it as much as the next guy. But let’s keep it all in perspective, shall we? The Internet serves us - not the other way around. And thanks to IE for reminding us of it in their small corner of the world.
