Password Rant

[readerjane]

I've been going through and updating passwords, as you do.

Could not get my password for my health insurance website to update for the longest time. It kept saying my new password didn't match: y'know, where you have to type it twice? Normally I'd type it in Notepad, then paste into the website to avoid accidentally pasting any formatting or invisible characters. But now pasting is not allowed because WE'RE SO SECURE. I looked for the "unmask my password" button that some sites provide, so I could check visually that they match. No unmasking allowed because WE'RE SO SECURE.

Finally, finally, I figured it out. Yes, the password must contain both upper-case and lower-case letters, at least one number, and at least one special character. But not all special characters are allowed; only some of them. And I'd used a verboten special character. And the first password box had turned green, meaning "this new password is okay, now type it again in next box, which was FALSE. Not until I'd typed it -- EXACTLY THE SAME -- in the second box did I get an error message. And it was the WRONG error message; the site wasn't complaining about non-matching at all. It was complaining that I'd used a special character that wasn't allowed, only it was showing me the WRONG ERROR MESSAGE.

I absolutely loathe sites that play mind games like this. Feh.

Comments

[superbadgirl]

I work at a place that uses multiple systems, and they all reset passwords every 4-6 weeks. We're talking I sometimes have to log into at least five different places to complete my work. The same thing happens to me and it makes me want to tear my hair out. The worst is now I have an ergonomic keyboard at my desk, so if I go cover the front or go into an interview room where the keyboard is a regular one, I NEVER type things right the first time.

I have to reset my password every time I log in to pay XYZ bill because I can never remember it and we're not supposed to write these things down anywhere.

[superbadgirl]

Oh, and the newish system we use has a neat feature that it gives you an error message if you've missed something, but it does not tell you what you missed - or can be on any person within the case OR even in records that are inactive, which you have to click through to find.

We're doing a time survey for management so they can get a good idea what it takes. Some things can take two minutes, but the last thing I did on Friday - which was to be a simple address change and transfer of case - took me 40 minutes. And I didn't finish.