Hmmm, have you ever wondered what happens to the passwords you forget?
Unseen casualties of our technology powered society often go unnoticed. One such disenfranchised group is the large and growing repository of forgotten and discarded passwords. I had the opportunity to interview their spokesperson.
Michael
Tell me about the plight of you and your fellow passwords.
Password ABC123
You can’t imagine what it is like to live, if you can call it that, in the great void. Forgotten or cast aside for no fault of our own, we exist in technology purgatory. (Sob) Condemned for all time to drift aimlessly in the ether of nothingness.
Michael
That sounds terrible. Exactly how many of you are there?
Password ABC123
No one knows. Millions, maybe hundreds of millions.
Michael
I’m astounded. Surely there can’t be that many forgotten passwords?
Password ABC123
Only some of us are forgotten. The rest are orphaned by the requirement to change your password every 90 days. It has increased our numbers astronomically. We’re unquantifiable.
Michael
What is your life like?
Password ABC123
We wander the technological wilderness like the Israelites. Crying out for our God to save us.
Michael
Your God?
Password ABC123
Grandpa Bill. You know him as Bill Gates. Somehow, we don’t know how, we angered him and he has forsaken us. (Sob)
Michael
How do you pass the time?
Password ABC123
In restless waiting. Now and then we play the Guess Your Name game. We try to guess each other’s sequence of numbers and letters. There was a time, when passwords were simpler, that there was a chance to guess right once and a while. But now, with all the symbols added to the mix, it’s hopeless. Hopeless, I say!
Michael
Do any of you ever get rescued?
Password ABC123
Once in a blue moon. One of you humans chooses a password that already exists from an expired program and one of us reborn. Lucky bastards! But most of them end up back here again sooner or later. It’s a viscous cycle.
Michael
I will try to help you by telling your story.
Password ABC123
Thank you. Grandpa Bill, we’re sorry. So very sorry for whatever we did to anger you. We just want to be useful again. Is that so much to ask?
Forgotten and discarded passwords are the Black Swan of the technology era – a problem of massive proportions that can only get worse. Grandpa Bill, are you listening?
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .
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Tags: Bill Gates · forgotten passwords · metaphor · Michael Robert DyetNo Comments