Plague of Passwords

I liked this little rant on passwords that I read in the paper today. Click to read the whole thing.

"Type your password incorrectly three times and you'll get your account suspended and have to talk to password control. They'll ask you security questions about your first pet, your second husband and your last mistress."

"One hoop we must jump through is deciphering weird distorted words on screen that we must retype correctly.

For instance, if you want to e-mail someone a curry recipe from gourmetrecipes.com, you may first have to identify blurry letters that seem to spell "ypoletka brezhnev."

It's a bit like an eye doctor chart, but harder to read, so I usually fail and must try another set that looks like "grfzuhs cereal" - and I fail again and decide I don't want to e-mail that recipe anyway.

I'm told these eye exams are to prove we are humans, not computers that are programmed to constantly scan the net trying to steal everyone's identity. Apparently machines can't read these distorted letters, so by deciphering them, we prove we are people. So why do I feel like I've turned into a machine instead?"