A few years ago, I got annoyed with passwords. It is a real pain to create serious passwords and still remember them so I began to think about solutions.

At first I wanted to create a little keychain dongle that would be small enough to carry everywhere but large enough to hold a screen and controls that could show you your passwords. Then I thought I could solve the problem with a cellphone and some simple software.

Not being a cell-phone programmer or having any extra time in business school, I let the idea drop. But the problem has not gone away, as evidenced by this article over the weekend.

The very essential ... um (what was it?) password

By Mike Himowitz

The Baltimore Sun

July 29, 2006

Passwords can be a pain, but they're key to security. Columnist Mike Himowitz offers advice on how to ease dealing with them and,

in another column, gives ideas from readers.

have too many passwords. In fact, when I counted mine this week, I came up with 42 logins for Web sites, data services, voice mail and e-mail systems.

I can do this easily because, like most folks who have to juggle lots of passwords, I do exactly the wrong thing. I write them down — in a safe place, of course.

In 2005, RSA Security surveyed 1,700 business computer users. It found that almost 60 percent had to manage at least six passwords, while 28 percent had to manage more than 13.

And that doesn't count personal passwords for who-knows-how-many e-mail accounts, voice-mail boxes and Web sites.

Some are important, such as bank, credit card and stock brokerages, and some aren't. But they require passwords all the same.

It's worse when each system has different requirements for password length, capitalization and the number of numeric characters and punctuation marks it allows.

The most secure — and biggest pains — are systems that generate passwords themselves, usually strings of gobbledygook such as "4jvKX3fred99+erk#2."