Safety First

      Sat in a branch of my local bank, I was impressed by a notice informing me that my account would now be accessible by voice recognition. Although a couple of days later, I was even more startled to read how someone had gained entry to such an account, simply by imitating the voice of the account holder! Merely a "teething problem" the bank may well be inclined to comment, putting no one's mind at rest. But then, when you think about matter's of security, there are always going to be a lot of disreputable types out there, trying to access your personal data and more particularly, your money.
      If you're like me, then no doubt you are walking around with a notebook containing the average twenty-plus passwords you need to conduct your secure on-line life, be it Banking, Social Media and your personal life and websites. We are constantly being reminded to change our passwords, add a telephone number and include an address, date of birth and so forth, next they'll be asking for your National Insurance Number, supposedly to at least make your account seemingly more secure!
      It can be very annoying trying to remember all the various spelling and misspelling of a password, some can be just to complicated to recall exactly, if you are not conversant with say the two or three most used. Ideally, some might say, it is advisable to change a password every three months and not by just a couple of digits. We are told to compose each password with various letters, upper and lower case, numbers and symbols, to make random spellings. Although most people would create a password something like; "john@abc123" which would be relatively simple to work out. A good idea is to use a short sentence of mixed words, such as; "Solitude Hired Kidnapper Magnate"which would take a hacker several lifetimes to de-code, whereas something more typical like; "AmbA$$Ador+8" could be calculated in a couple of days, (a fact which has been verified by a government agency) Although the majority of people are more likely to use something a little more conventional like; "12345"