Cryptic

There has been a lot of discussion about online security in the news recently; especially the issue of the integrity of passwords, and the antisocial activities of hackers who try their darnedest to infiltrate the accounts of hard-working folk who never did anyone any harm and only want to surf the internet to keep in touch with distant friends and relatives and enrich their knowledge of the world about them. And, instead, they are forced to change their passwords to protect their privacy. Which sounds a simple enough task, other than we are all burdened nowadays with hundreds of passwords to hundreds of different accounts, some of which insist that you update your password at frequent intervals, and not just to the name of your favourite pet but to some immemorable string of random alphanumeric characters with the odd punctuation mark thrown in for good measure. There comes a point, quite soon on for some of us, when all this starts to fall apart, and each new password ejects an existing one from long-term memory, and then in time ejects several, until all that is left is a meaningless jumble. And you are driven in desperation to write them down on small slips of paper that you secrete in obscure places for safety until you realise you cannot even remember where you secreted them, and you end up plastering them to the front of the refrigerator with a selection of novelty fridge magnets. And so much for online security.