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Sharky

Shark Tank

Security: theory and practice

This IT pilot fish works for a company that now requires users to change their passwords on a regular basis -- but it wasn't always that way.

"In the past, we didn't let users change their own passwords, under the theory that would cause too many calls to IT to reset them when the users forgot their new passwords," fish says.

"Interesting thing is, now that we have instituted the 'you will change' policy, we may get one password-reset call a month, if that -- less than people forgetting the preset one.

"I'm not going to mention that those preset passwords were all kept in a spreadsheet, in case the user forgot or someone else needed to log on as him..."

Sharky doesn't need theory -- just true tales of IT life. Send me yours at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll get a stylish Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

The Best of Shark Tank includes more than 70 tales of IT woe submitted by you, our readers, since 1999. Which all goes to prove, conclusively, that hapless users and idiotic bosses are indeed worldwide phenomena. Free registration is all that's needed to download The Best of Shark Tank (PDF).

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