The Enid Blyton Society

I often feel that the requirements for password creation especially in hospitals, police stations etc are so complex that they in fact make their systems even less secure.

Most nurses I've worked with have carried a list of passwords slipped into the back of their lanyard or in their pocket notebook as they have to use a different password for each of the systems they log into (some daily others less often) and each password must contain a mix of numbers and letters etc. They also must be changed every month and cannot be changed to a previous password. Ludicrous!

     Well, I don't know if there are many people who would want to get into the places (real or computer) nurses use passwords to get into; but if there are, I wonder whether there is much incidence of people literally mugging nurses to snatch their written passwords.
     What a world we live in - seems to be going downhill all the time. Life when I was a kid, in the 1960s, seems so peaceful and idyllic now.

Regards, Michael.

So true Michael. It's no wonder we all enjoy reading our Blytons, just to recapture that old secure feeling where the baddies got caught and all came right in the end!

MJE wrote:     Well, I don't know if there are many people who would want to get into the places (real or computer) nurses use passwords to get into; but if there are, I wonder whether there is much incidence of people literally mugging nurses to snatch their written passwords.

True, but all the information in those systems is private. If anyone could log in they could find out who had HIV for example, including their address and phone number. People who are divorced or otherwise separated but have children together are always asking nursing staff about what the other parent is up to, did they turn up for their appointment, and are they still dating that woman etc. Many, given the chance would be unscrupulous enough to log in to a computer and see what they could find out.

It's not so much a case of nurses being mugged for the passwords, but nurses often remove their lanyards (some confused or aggressive patients can try and strangle nurses with them) and often put down their notebooks on the nursing station.

Memo to self, never write passwords down

Your not a nurse by any chance Fiona?

I'm a qualified children's nurse, but that's not what I work as at the moment.

Fiona1986 wrote: they have to use a different password for each of the systems they log into (some daily others less often) and each password must contain a mix of numbers and letters etc. They also must be changed every month and cannot be changed to a previous password. Ludicrous!

I work at an airport and have the same situation. We have about a dozen different systems that we use and each has a different password which must be changed regularly and cant be ever repeated. Just trying to come up with new ones every month is a major pain, let alone remembering them all.