Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Crackers

We had a minor issue to deal with recently, when the kids figured out that since they know how to turn on the home computer and start up their favorite games, they could get up earlier and earlier in the morning and play until mommy and daddy woke up.  They'd be cranky in the afternoon sometimes, which is more-or-less fine during the summer, but would be a problem once school started, so I put a very simple password on the computer.  

The other day we came downstairs to get the kids breakfast and make lunchboxes, and found a piece of paper next to the computer with cowsnocats, cowsascats, as dog no caps written on it.  This was bewildering, until I remembered that the password hint was "a's dog no caps".  I'm sorely tempted now to put a numeric password with a math problem as the hint, at least on the weekends.

3 comments:

  1. Last year #1 was given at school an account on xtramath.com or some such thing, but couldn't remember his password. Strangely, it's set up as a Chinese menu with 6^3 possibilities. Imagine my pride when he brute-forced it through lexicographic search! (My experience with college students is that lex order needs to be explicitly taught.)

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  2. We did somethign similar, making the password our phone number to help memorize it.

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