I am posting this to keep from throwing my laptop across the room.
A project management tool we use called Infowit is set up to force users to choose a new password every couple of months. OK, I can somewhat understand that – there’s a desire for security.
(Never mind the fact that when people have to change their passwords, they’re more likely to write them down so that they remember them, resulting in less security. On the other hand, if people change jobs, eventually they’re locked out of a corporation’s systems by default.)
The annoying thing is that the system will not allow me to choose any normal (i.e., human readable) password. It has to contain characters such as ~!#$%^&*()_+ etc. etc.
The triply annoying thing is that the auto-generated new password the system offers CONTAINS NONE OF THOSE CHARACTERS … and thus, tragi-comically, fails to work.
Sometimes, you can only shake your head wearily (and publish a nasty blog post about some stupid company’s stupidity.)
[tags] infowit, password, security, stupidity, funny, annoying, john koetsier [/tags]
Nice title.
If you can install it, you could try Password Assistant. All it does is use the built-in password maker of Mac OS X (the same one you get in FileVault, without using FileVault).