I have passwords. I have a password I use to login into the computers for work, which I am instructed to change about every three months. I teach on a quarter system, but the passwords don't last a full quarter. I find that annoying. I wanted to come up with a system that would allow me to create a new password I could remember each quarter, but my system and my calendar are out of synch. I feel like St. Gregory or something. Why can't the security protocols at a college follow the same calendar as the classes and everything else?
Maybe that is part of the security scheme. Fool the hackers by tweaking the calendar. As far as I know, my account at work has never been hacked, so I guess the security system works. Or maybe no one has bothered to try to hack my account because there is nothing to gain from it.
I also have a password at work that lets me into the platform the school uses for registration. I keep attendance and grades in that system. I set my password when I was hired. I have not been asked to change my password, and I have never felt the need, so it is the same password I created when I first logged on. As far as I know, my account in that system has never been hacked, either. I can imagine students wishing they could hack into that system so they could tweak a grade, just enough to get by, but it has not happened. If it did, I could prove the grades had been changed, because I keep my grades for each quarter in a spreadsheet that is not stored in the registration platform. If my spreadsheet did not match the registrar's records, I would know someone had changed one, and I could probably figure out which.
Of course, it is possible someone has hacked both systems, and changed grades in both, which would make it rather hard to catch. Of course, there are other records of those grades, including printed copies in a separate archive, so if someone ever had a question about the accuracy of the grade records, those other archives could also be checked. I wonder, though, what might cause me or someone else to make the effort to check those archives.
I have had social media accounts hacked. I had an email account hacked once, too. Someone sent out some emails inconsistent with my normal practices under my account. I still have the account, though I did change my password. I changed that password again, later. I don't often use that email account any more.
I read about data breaches a lot, and I sometimes wonder if my data have been stolen and fed into some dark algorithm. I watch for signs. My mother-in-law recently had purchases made on her credit card. The security system at the bank caught the problem, cancelled the purchases, and informed her rather quickly. She has a new credit card. Her bank is proud of its security system, and seems to have reason. I do not wish my credit card to be hacked.
Perhaps someday someone, or some algorithm, will develop a cyber security system that is impervious to hacking. I read about the theoretical possibility now and then, but I don't know how seriously to take that. It seems that bigger and bigger prime numbers may be involved in greater security. But I don't see why it would not be possible for security to get so strong, I lose control or even access to my own accounts. I don't know what the algorithms would do with my data, or my students' grades, but if I lost access, I could not even ask them. I would simply have to rely on my old-fashioned archives for everything. And my students would have to learn how to write again. Is that a win-win?
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