TGIF #11: Passwords

an elegy on authentication

Passwords are my nemesis.

Last year, more than 1 billion people were affected by thousands of data breaches, and cybersecurity is big business. I am grateful for some of the newer tools developed to protect our identities and manage the authentication across devices, sessions, and applications. But I will admit I’ve been slower to adopt the “suggested” password feature, as somehow I (incorrectly) feel I’m better suited to permission myself vs. a sophisticated hacker.

Passwords aren’t unique to our digital age. The Roman military used “watchwords” to allow access to guarded areas, and one whispered a password to gain access to speakeasies during prohibition. In 1960, the first digital password was created at MIT to allow users to access unique computer files on a shared mainframe. It didn’t take long for the first data breach to follow two years later, and thus began the parabolic growth in the necessity and invention of our digital identities.

All of this got me thinking about my identity and how it has changed over time. Then I wrote this poem.

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Passwords

Who am I? 
Cursor blinking, 
I forget, again. 
Auto-fill takes over, 
helping me complete 
a prior version of myself, 
but no dice. 
Sensing my lapse, 
a Passkey window pops open
suggesting I thought ahead, 
storing a former me. 
Sadly, only blanks. 
Admitting defeat, 
I must reset.

A deep sigh, 
more Me’s to remember.

It feels too early 
for big decisions 
and I can’t bear 
the cryptic combination 
my machine suggests. 
What part of SZ*12Hsbrzgy26! 
feels like the key 
to me?
And so I create 
a new password 
that won’t be the last,
a subtle twist 
on something familiar,  
until the next forced reset. 


By Heather M. Coughlin (2024)

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workLIT Memo:

The concept of identity has probably always been ripe for poetry. It carries a lot of responsibility for how we view and interact with the world and can change over time. Identity is defined in social science as the set of qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, ethnicity, and/or expressions that characterize a person or a group.

This year, I’ve thought a lot about the concept of professional vs. personal identities—where they converge and diverge for some people, and change over time. Like you, perhaps, my identities have evolved over several chapters of roles, experiences, and levels of responsibility. And yet there are parts of my identity that are fixed. Lots to think (and write) about on this one…