Password Amnesia

This commentary was written by CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer.

Yes, I am well aware that I make my living working for an Internet news site. I do realize that the fruits of my labor (more often miscarriages in my own case) are transported globally by computers. I know where my cyber-bread is web-buttered. I can live with my hypocrisy on this one, having had plenty of practice.

What I am having a harder time coping with, is the intersection of my declining powers of memory and the proliferation of passwords in my life.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, passwords: I can't handle them anymore. And I am pretty much of a minimalist when it comes to using online services — no online banking, bill paying, dating, job-searching, chatting, user-grouping, video renting or "social networking" (i.e., talking to strangers; I'm still not allowed).

I was off last week. When I came back to my perch in front of the Dell flat screen, the part of my brain that remembers passwords had not returned from vacation. Like the Manchurian Candidate, I was erased. If you don't exercise the password brain everyday, and you're old and decrepit, it atrophies. Use it or lose it; the losing takes about a week.

I tried to sign my kid up for soccer — forgot the password. Had to e-mail the league and check a box that confirmed I was mentally infirm.

When I went to sign up for an extremely urgent Rotisserie baseball statistics service, I couldn't remember my PayPal password. After proving to PayPal that I know my mother's maiden name, the city of my birth, my preference between mayo and mustard, and Brittany Spear's child's birth weight, I was granted a new password.

My understanding is that it is highly illegal to write down your passwords anywhere. It's like tearing the tag off of mattresses — you could go to jail. So I don't do it. What if someone found that special slip of paper? I would have to become Amish.

Don't even think about suggesting I use one or two passwords for everything. That is not possible. It does not compute.

At work I have to change my password every 90 days. The site where I can check on the 401(k) that will pay for six months of my retirement if I'm lucky insists that my password be between 11-20 characters, three of which much be either &*^%$#! (And it must include the scrambled letters of the capital of a West African nation.) Our health plan demands we get prescriptions only online. The password there is your blood pressure on your 30th birthday divided by your bad cholesterol followed by the first three letters of your second favorite internal organ.

Believe me, I am sensitive to the need for personal security. Yes, I am a victim of identity theft. Actually, let me put it in a more empowering form — I am a recovering stolen identity victim.

I used to be a podiatrist earning big bucks not far from Duluth. One day I bought Dr. Scholl's autobiography on Amazon.com. The next day, whammo, I'm an Internet columnist trapped inside the Beltway. No way to go back. The feds think it was a Nigerian scam.

So even though I'm a total hypocrite on the computer issue, my victim credentials are awesome. So it is with some credibility that I ask: isn't there an easier system?

Or maybe I should just go Amish.

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By Dick Meyer