Technology Rants

I am sick, almost to the point of shutting off my computers entirely, of all of the password craziness and other security measures!

I have a Microsoft password, which is used for Bing Rewards and for the rare occasions when I might want to register something with Microsoft. Why? I don't know.

Yet, periodically, Microsoft will make me change my password and it won't let me use anything similar to what I've used before. I change it on one computer, which requires getting a code by text message and/or through my email address because sometimes it decides that I need to do both.

That done, I turn on my other devices, such as my two other computers, since I've given up on trying to keep the iPhone apprised of my new passwords since that (the potentially most convenient) part of Apple's famed synchronization has never worked for me. Instead, it will unnecessarily duplicate photos from one device to another, but I have to enter all of my passwords separately.

I enter the new password (which I have just set up) into a second device, and it tells me that either the username or the password is incorrect. I double-check and no, the password I just assigned to it is indeed the one that I am entering, and it works on the first computer. I've even tried emailing the password to myself and copying and pasting it. Still, it won't work on the second device.

In the end, I have to change my password again, sometimes two or three times before it will be accepted on a second or third device.

Today, I tried to log into my Windows machine, which I have logged into dozens of times without difficulty. But today, it wants something called a Windows OneDrive password, which I don't recall ever requesting and didn't even know what it was until I looked it up. So, I had to do a password change on something that I never set up, to begin with, and now it's telling me I need to verify it with my Microsoft App, which I don't have and don't want.

So, no Windows OneDrive for me, which would be fine except it keeps nagging me about it.

I have to go through the same thing with my Apple password, and that is no easier or better than the Microsoft one, except that it's more frustrating because I use it more often.

Why all of this security on my part? Every breach is on their end. They will pass my stuff on to any hacker that wants it, but I have to spend half a day every few weeks going through this nonsense. Breaches don't come from people hacking into my computer. There would be very little profit in that. The breaches come from people hacking into the websites of the major tech companies, and all of this crap that I have to sign into every day will be handed to the hackers, and will probably work for them.

I'm sick of it! I just want to press the button on my computer and use it. I don't mind logging into any website that maintains private information and would be concerned if I didn't have to, but I shouldn't have to go through this just to use the computer, and I shouldn't have to do it repeatedly.

That's it for now. I have another rant about a printer that came today, but I'll wait to see if I am able to figure it out or not. There was a time when printers weren't complicated.

 

I get warnings from Google every now and then about passwords that I have reused or which have similarities, and they list the website as well as the password that I used. I can't help but wonder why the hell Google knows all of my passwords? I don't even use their damned search engine! What is the point in my assigning passwords that take ten minutes for me to fill them out if they're given to Google? I do no business with Google since I sent my Chromebook off to my sister-in-law. Fortunately, most of the ones on the lists that I get from Google are badly out of date, and they include websites that don't even exist anymore, but some of them aren't.

 

It is possible that your iCloud Keychain (which is what syncs all of the passwords from every apple device) has accidentally gotten turned off; so you are only seeing the passwords from each device when you look, and it is not updating with all of your devices now.
To check and see, go to settings/(your name) iCloud/ and then scroll down to keychain and make sure that this is turned on.
Just using your keychain is not going to connect them unless the cloud-sharing for this is turned on.

 

My son set up a google/based email account for me years and years ago, and I have used the same very simple password for over 20 years, and google has never said that I should change it.
Yahoo asks me every now and then, when I am checking my yahoo mail; but I just verify what I have and don’t change that either.

 

I keep all of mine on a spreadsheet and let Firefox automatically generate the "highly secure" ones, since there's no way of my recalling even the simple ones, since there are so many of them.

I'll tell you a funny incident I had when I got my first iPhone a year ago and the GO Wireless Verizon affiliate set things up for me. There are so many different accounts--my Apple ID and the GMail account that got set up for my backup and my Verizon credentials--that when the GO Wireless rep asks for my ID and Password, my eyes glaze over. I was there with a problem not long after I got my stuff set up and I had no idea which password she was asking me for, much less what it was. So she calls the guy who set up my account (it was his day off) and the sucker actually remembered what password he had created for me!!! He was on the other end of the phone and remembered my account credentials without seeing my face!!!!! Not only does he have a great memory, I got a security leak named "Roger."

 

That's right. I do have a gmail.com email address, although I don't use it often. That uses a different email address from my Google account, though, which I used to use for Google Webmaster Tools.

 

The had to set one up for me when I bought my first iPhone. I think it's to back up my Contacts, but may be for other stuff.

edit to clarify: I had to set up a Gmail account, not a Google account.

 

I found an interesting youtube channel called “Tech for Seniors”, and they have quite a few informative videos, and well as specialty videos about Chromebooks, how to use them properly, and why they are SO perfect for seniors like us.
Here is the short introductory video that explains the channel, so you can find it, check out the videos and subscribe if you are interested (I did !).
Learning more about our devices is a good way to help avoid those technology rants, too…….