Its a mess
I’ve been worried recently about how secure I am online. There has been a huge amount of news coverage over here in the UK about personal digital security. As someone who works as a software engineer, I always feel slightly smug when such stories are reported.
I really shouldn’t have done. On spending time looking at where account were held:
31 separate logins.
3 passwords used.
4 sites I could no longer log in to.
Although I had tried to separate out junk and secure passwords, there were some relatively insecure sites using the same password as places that had access to financial details. All in all, very insecure and a complete mess.
What can be done
As time goes by I think this situation may just get worse unless websites wise up. I felt much better about the e-commerce sites I had been to that offered paypal payment methods, or simply payment without having to open up an account. OpenID certainly has a role to play, although seems pretty flawed without some improvements in the phishing situation.
Until then I’ll have to spend the time, dull time, organizing my digital identity. As will everyone else.