I.D. Numbers Have Become Too Complex

Halt! What’s the password?”

Some sentry was always shouting this in old World War II movies. Then the GI would yell, “Brooklyn Dodgers!” and the sentry would wave him through.

Today, the poor GI would have to say, “Which do you want? My user password? My voice-mail password? My e-mail I.D. number? My ATM PIN-number? My PenTechnical Systems customer-identification sequence?”

Sigh. Times were so much simpler in those old days, despite the fact that the Axis powers were attacking on three fronts. Yet password-wise, those GIs were living in a happy little dream world. Little did they know that they were saving democracy for a time when every single transaction would require a different password and that it is impossible to remember any of them.

I realized that password-proliferation had reached critical proportions last week when a friend asked me if I had ever signed up for the online version of a certain magazine.

“Yes,” I said. “I signed up for it last year. It’s great.”

“Can you get on it and look something up for me?” my friend asked.

“Sure!” I said brightly. “Well, actually, no, I can’t.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“I don’t remember my password,” I said. “In fact, I’ve never remembered my password. But let me cycle through some of my usual passwords, and maybe we’ll get lucky.”

My usual passwords? Fifteen years ago, the only password I had was, “Honey, let me in. I’ve been working late. Honest.”

Now, most of us have so many passwords that we try to use two or three stock words whenever we can. These are usually actual words, names of cartoon characters or marsupials, for instance, which are a snap to remember. Unfortunately, half the time the computer system won’t allow us to pick a password or user-name that someone else has already claimed. And you’d be surprised at how many other people have already tried to use “wombat.”

So you can try a funny spelling of wombat (“waumbat,” or “waughmbat”), but you’d be amazed at how many people have already thought of every funny spelling of wombat. Or you can use a completely random collection of letters btzpklnoz or schnbnfrdn that you will never again remember as long as you live, even if you write it down somewhere, which you shouldn’t, because then someone might find it and clean out your entire savings account, getting away with upwards of $195.

Or, you can try to put some numbers on the end of wombat. You finally hit the jackpot with “waughmbat853076519,” which you will never, in 853076519 years, remember.

The human brain cannot consistently remember numbers with that many digits. In fact, when the U.S. Postal Service introduced the five-digit ZIP code they cited scientific studies that showed five digits to be the optimum for the human memory. Then, several decades later, just to play with our minds, the Postal Service launched the nine-digit ZIP code.

So we are already living in a world in which we have to remember our ZIP code, our Social Security number, our answering-machine code, our automated customer service code and our garage-door-opener security code, not to mention our work and home phone numbers, which all by themselves are enough to stretch my brain capacity to the limit. Yet now we are confronted with the password’s diabolical twin, the PIN number.

Many is the time I have stood frustrated at the bank machine or grocery store, viciously stabbing numbers into the little keypad, only to remember that 1404 is not my PIN number but my Frequent Pizza Card number from Big Bruno’s. I know my PIN number, yet I still occasionally suffer memory lock and start desperately punching in any numbers that come to mind, such as Edgar Martinez’s batting average or my cholesterol level.

At times like these, I crave those simpler times when a simple “Brooklyn Dodgers” would suffice. A guy could still suffer memory lock and yell “Boston Braves!” and be cut down in a hail of bullets. But at least a guy didn’t have to memorize a number the size of Switzerland’s Gross National Product just to get $40 cash from the bank.

To leave a message on Jim Kershner’s voice-mail, call 459-5493. Or send e-mail to jimk@spokesman.com, or regular mail to Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210.