Usernames, passwords, emails and chat IDs

The advent of internet and networking, brought the need to maintain online security and privacy of its users. Experts devised a simple way. The use of 'usernames' and 'passwords'. A username is nothing but an online name.....your intials, your name, first name initials, last name full and various such combinations. Password is a string of characters, which only the user is supposed to know. It could be a number, few alphabets or alphanumeric. Generally, the username becomes your email ID. E.g (username)@website.com. The username used in office is generally more or less fixed by your network administrator. But here I am talking of the one which we create ourselves, the one used on a public website.

I have observed that, at times, these usernames may well be an indication of the people whom they belong to. Middle aged aunties, who've just discovered how the net is used have a very straight forward username, probably followed by the year in which they have created the ID. Most probably, they'll keep the password same as the username, coz they might probably think that it would be better if its the same, so that they wont forget it. Fair enough......however they tend to forget their username as well !!!

At times, the username is same as the chat ID or vice versa. Young guys, who'd love to meet someone online in a chat room would have the typical 'macho' username or chat ID.

handsomehunk or muscleman or imyourman are common chat IDs. People who are willing to reveal their age (or fake it for obvious purposes) keep an 'asl' chat ID (age-sex-location..........the cool chat lingo) . For example, 18maledelhi.......... or a more 'sophisticated' one would be 21handsomemaledilli-6. They'll keep an age which, in their opinion would be the most attractive age to girls, even if they happen to be as old as 28 or as young as 15.

This is not an exception to girls...........sweet16goingon17 is an example of an 'oh-so-sassy' chat ID, guaranteed to pull all the boys of all the chat rooms of a public chat.

Coming back to usernames again, people who have an uncommon name can exercise the best option of a using the username, so that their email address becomes First name.Last name@website.com or firstnamelastname@website.com.

For those who have a common name, would find the above format is not available for them, as their are already people who have that name, and have already kept that email ID.

And so poor souls like my friend irfan, with names common with about a 1000 people in this world, go in for keeping an email ID, which also has their birthdate suffixed.

And for poor soulds like me, with a name common with about 10000 people in this world, go in for an email ID, which has their birthdate, month and maybe even birth year suffixed.

Cant say much about passwords, but a popular password is the name of a person suffixed with something like 123 or maybe their birthdates.

Believe me, its not easy to think up passwords, if your office server keeps asking you to change password on a quarterly basis........after all it cant be xyz123 all the time can it ???!!!