The gremlins in cyber space security tell me I’ve been “breached.” Breached without even a kiss first.
Where was I breached, you ask? Right in the AOL, that’s where! Right where it hurts. No kiss, no lube.
Yeah, yeah, I hear you left-brain, cutting edge Gen Xers — you know who you are — saying,
Yes, yes it is. It’s as around as I am, which is more a-round every year.
That’s not the point.
The point, while elusive, is really who the fuck would hack AOL in the first place?
Do hackers think all we old(er) folks have money?
Joke’s on you, hackers.
As my sister says,
Take my debt. Please.
From the breach of my simple but memorable — for me — password on AOL, I’ve been “compromised” on way too many other websites because — you guessed it you clever Gen Zs you — I use the same password for nearly everything. KISS — Keep it simple sweetheart.
I see you laughing and slapping your hand against your forehead. Stop that.
Your prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed yet. You’ll hurt yourselves.
In my defense, the password contains a combination of numbers no one could guess. It’s the date my son was projected to be born. The doctors were wrong. Who could guess that?
I guess you could, now, you conniving Millennials. With your search skills, it might take all of 3 minutes. Longer than it’s taking me to write this takedown of hackers, breachers and compromisers.
To prevent all you youngsters from hacking my password, I’ve changed it on Every. Single. Website. Since we refer to the hours and days we spend online as “our lives,” that’s a plethora of passwords.
Now I’m on a roll. I may change passwords more often. That just sent a little spark through my fully-developed-but-in-need-of-stimulation pre-frontal cortex. Plethora would be a fun password word. I’ll have to think of some other combo of numbers, though.
Maybe the projected date of my rebirth? Or the date I joined AOL? Or maybe the date I made the leap and made two Gmail accounts?
In addition to using “plethora” for the letters, how about the name I used in chat rooms back then. Only a handful of people in cyber space whom I never met or even saw avatars for — because there were no such things then — would know that one.
I’m pretty sure I’m un-hackable now, children. I’m letting my computer remember all my passwords. It has a better memory than I do. Plus, I use touch to open the computer and all the websites now. Nobody has the same fingerprints, so I should be good.
I should be safe unless somebody wants my information badly enough to kidnap me and cut off my fingertips, or slice off my fingerprints. How long do fingerprints last anyway, after being sliced off?
I’ll have to Google that. While I still have fingerprints to open the computer and the search engines.
As for passwords on my phone, they all require my face.
Relax, I’m not hacking into that thought, either in my own mind, or in this story.
I’ve planted the idea in your brain, though, so good luck with that.
. . .
Thanks to Stephanie Wilson, for fearlessly charging into the breach.
Now that my passwords are changed, “All I have to do” is merge my two Apple IDs.
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This post was previously published on MuddyUm.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
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