What happens if your password is "incorrect?"

In response to last week’s question, "What happens if your password is "incorrect?", my IT networking (and sailing) friend Kurt complained, "If my password were incorrect, you just told it to everyone. May be I'll change it!" to which my birthday bud Jon added, "Damn!  How did you know?  Now I’ve got to change them all back to Password."

My dad's beach buddy Bob wished, "Hopefully it will continue to be incorrect for all of the scammers who are out there. "

Another IT support friend, Kosol, noted, "Obviously it's not 'wrong!'"

My business executive friend Blair replied, "Well, duh - when I type 'incorrect' into the password box, I get immediate access. Hmmm...unless the password requires numbers and special symbols and caps. Then 'incorrect' would be an incorrect password and I guess I'd need a reset."   To this, my Parrothead friend Samantha advised, "Sorry Hal - "incorrect" doesn't have a capital letter or number, so it is incorrect.  Your password is incorrect.  Incorrect? Incorrect.  Oh wait- I remember- incorrect.  And that would be where the computer would go through the window and the electronic paper trail would be irreparably lost."

To all of this, my sailing friend Michael cautions, "When my password entry returns “incorrect,” my protocol is to call my IT consultant, have him charge me $125 and direct me to re-enter it—at which point it works."

My new transportation friend Joe declared, "I type in:   ‘ I n c o r r e c t’ and I’m in!"   

My business collaboration guru Paul reflected, "Per behavioral psychology, we experience ‘loss aversion’ which is more painful to us than the pleasure we’d receive from being able to enter the site."

My temple friend Richard observed, "If you type “incorrect” in correctly, then it must be correct! If you type “incorrect” incorrectly enough, then you will get in a lot of trouble for being politically incorrect. However, if you get sent to diversity training, you would be “in correction.”  When I followed-up with "…and when you do your diversity training to be "in correction," would you be in a correction facility?", Richard replied, "Correct. FYI: You’re comment re correction facilities reminds me (for no obvious reason) that it is not an accident that prisons, mental hospitals, and marriages are all categorized as 'institutions.'"

When my sailing friend Norm suggested, "You call Russia to get the correct one!", my writing friend Stan counseled, "Don’t fight it. Click 'Forgot My Password' and reset it to a 'correct' one. It’s faster. I could go into a diatribe about the use of the word “incorrect” – for example, it could say “perhaps you made a keyboarding mistake” – and how Internet brevity can promote hostile feelings, but…"

My equestrian friend Royce lamented, "If I could only get in my computer i would know" to which my St George friend Bruce replied, "It's the best thing in the world!  That way if you can't remember how to spell it, the computer responds: " Your password is incorrect"... Heck it couldn't be simpler."

And my social media friend Mark shared Microsoft's advice, "Reboot. Even the experts do that first."

Please share your thoughts about this week's "things that make you go 'Hmmm' “:

Are you stuttering if you write right?

Live. Love. Learn. Laugh .. Lighten up!  

Hal

Demetri Martin is performing at the Punchline in ATL on Sat, Mar 28.  Help me celebrate a birthday --- see you there?

Thanks to Demetri Martin, Steven Wright and George Carlin for the inspiration for Hmmm.  Stop by www.nichelabs.com to see what else I'm up to.