Password Rant
Jul. 16th, 2021 09:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readerjaneI'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.
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.
