Hitech robbery

There may not be too many highwaymen around these days, but one crime from which we suffer in the 21st century was undreamed of back in the time of Dick Turpin and the rest: cybercrime. The value (if that is the correct word) of this form of criminal activity is now so great that I can't recall the number of zeroes involved. Does it run to 7 or 8 digits every year? I don't know, but I do know that the figure is huge.

Companies selling goods and services online are having to adopt more and more elaborate ways of countering the problem. So, when we want to log on to myriad web sites, including many that would not appear to be susceptible to cybercrime, we have to type in our user name followed by a password. Sometimes we can choose the password when registering (or after registration), sometimes the password is allocated randomly by the site, but they usually have to consist of between 8 and 20 characters, a mix of letters and numerals. Sometimes the password is case-sensitive and will contain a mix of both upper- and lower-case letters. We are advised to use a different password for each site with which we are registered, and to change them from time to time. Even the user name can vary. It might be an email address, it might be a name we select (such as AlexJones) or it might be selected for us and consist of a mixture of letters and numerals - just like the password.

Add to all these user names and passwords the PINs connected with credit and debit cards and the situation becomes bizarre. Just how, I ask, is one expected to remember all the user names, passwords and PINs - and which goes with which and where? I have not yet found anybody who has come up with a simple, foolproof system to solve this problem. One acquaintance told me that he has set up a spreadsheet, but I would have thought that rather dangerous even though it is protected by... another password.