30 DAYS OF SWORDFISH

Workplace security is officially out of control.

Not so long ago you'd come in, show your pass to the guy at the main gate, then you were ready to start your day. Heck, sometimes you didn't even need to show a pass - the security guy just knew everyone. These days you're carrying an electronic fob to access the gate, you need two different four-digit codes to get into the corridor you work in, and then you switch on your computer to be told that your password expires in four days.

That's a nasty little damper on your day, isn't it, that moment where you have to come up with a new password? You're scrabbling around, you're looking at notes on your desk, you're trying to think of obscure pet names. "Computer... No, wait - password. No, no - scratch that. Phone. Post-it. Um... Pen!" It's like a little game of eye-spy going on there for a half a minute or so.

What is with all these computer passwords anyhow? Bad enough you have to remember one password, to then have to change it every thirty days... well, it's a tough call to keep coming up with new material on a regular basis, you don't have to tell me that.

I think a lot of people use the same principal when coming up with these new passwords. They settle on something that they can remember and then they add a number to the end. "Lisa" has expired? I'll just turn to her twin sister, the charming "Lisa1". When the health of "Lisa1" takes a downturn, she can be replaced by the delightful "Lisa2". We all reason that no criminal mastermind would think to change the number at the end like that. They'd maybe put in Lisa and Lisa1 and, once that didn't work, they'd just give up. Thus our computer is locked up, safe and untouchable to the world of crime and we can sleep easily in our beds.

For the most part, criminal geniuses don't actually sneak into your office to access your computer. They're not forging a pass to show to the guy at the gate, they don't carry one of those magic key fob things that tests every four-digit combination ever in a three second high pitched blip so they can get through the doors to your office, and they don't use clever password skills to get into your computer files. Really, it's all remote access these days, back-door stuff. You see it in the papers every week - we're all aware of how it's done.

So, I figure the ever-changing password is really only there for one reason: To make sure that the workers are actually awake by asking them taxing questions every 30 days. If you can't come up with a new password within three minutes, security turns up, they escort you from the premises.