"Registering" at websites

[Chris Padilla]

How many times have you hit this bump in your general searching on the good ol' 'net only to be stopped because you need to register, think up yet another password (or use the same old one you use everywhere because, well, you aren't a memory chip).

Registering must have its upsides, too, so I'd love to hear from both sides of the camp.

This hit me today as my company sent out an email from HR with several topics of interest. One caught my interest so I clicked on it, then clicked once more to get to the page only to find I need to register to move forward. Grrrr, all right. Click: I see a page and a half of crap I need to fill out....pass.....go check for any new posts on SMC....

[Jim Becker]

Registration has its ups and downs, Chris. Sometimes you "have to" to get what you want...other times, it's purely a pain in the tukus. Fortunately for work, almost everything has been "normalized"...the real challenge are sites outside the corporate environment and personal recreation.

For general Internet type things, I generally use the same easy to remember, but strong password (or a variation when necessary for length, etc), if one is required, and have separate email identities, particularly for sites that I shop at. Using different email addresses helps me to understand what's being done with those addresses and I can shut them off if I want to. Privacy policies are not always maintained as they are presented...

[Dennis Peacock]

I use my Palm Pilot with HanDBase with password set on the database. I have over 100 different passwords to comply with security standards for here at work. So the Palm Pilot comes to the rescue.

Internet stuff? yea....I set them as well but only a derivative of a computer generated password from when I worked at PATRIOT Missile Systems.

[Tyler Howell]

Dennis,

You got me beat but I'm around 30 for all the payroll, budget, facility access teleconferencing and fun . The stumper is they are all on different expiration schedules. 30, 60, & 90 day rotations, no tags back, no repeats.
Many must have one upper case letter and 2 numbers in the body, eight characters long, No numbers on the ends!!!! You wonder why I'm on meds???
I spend a lot of time with IT getting my password reset each requires you to "register".

A necessary evil??

[Dennis Peacock]

Dennis,

You got me beat but I'm around 30 for all the payroll, budget, facility access teleconferencing and fun . The stumper is they are all on different expiration schedules. 30, 60, & 90 day rotations, no tags back, no repeats.
Many must have one upper case letter and 2 numbers in the body, eight characters long, No numbers on the ends!!!! You wonder why I'm on meds???
I spend a lot of time with IT getting my password reset each requires you to "register".

A necessary evil??

Understand there buddy.!!!!

We spend a fair chunk of our time just trying to gain access to a server. With over 500 Unix boxes on the floor and still growing, we spend time just adding accounts and trying to remember which ones we directly support, if we have an account on that box and IF the password has already expired.!!!

Sometimes I wonder if we are peddeling backwards or something.?

[Chris Padilla]

Well, Dennis, if you're pedaling backwards, at least you know which direction you should be going. It is worse to think your pedaling forward yet going backwards!!

[Greg Mann]

Well guys, I was going to comment on this but I forgot my password.

Do any of you feel a touch of anxiety when you think you remember your password and the message says, "You have used one of your five tries."? Time to go fumbling for the little notebook. Hope I remember where I put it.
Greg

[Ken Garlock]

Since 1998 I have been using a shareware product called Password Pro. With it you only need to remember ONE password, and that is the one to get you into Password Pro.

It is very simple to use. There are only three entries you must make: A description of the site, user ID, and the password for that site. I you wish, you can add the web link in the fourth column. In the fifth column is the date of the last update, maintained by the program.

OH yes, the data file containing your paswoord info is encrypted when you do a save.

For $10 it is a good buy.
Password Pro

[Paul Smith]

Personally, I hate those registration pages, not because of the number of id's and passwords, (I just use the same ones everywhere), but because of the data tracking abuse potential. Try this web-site

http://bugmenot.com/

All you do is enter the url of the site requiring registration, and it will provide a user account and password that works for that particular site.