Schools should teach better password security

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Homework Diary lgI had a friend ring me today and she mentioned home work troubles with her child. Apparently they’d tried to log in to do their maths homework and their password wouldn’t work.

Obviously worries about detentions and the like were the top concerns, but what worries me more is the School’s lax attitude to security. Apparently all the pupils are required to write down their user names and passwords in their homework diaries.

I don’t know if the password was changed and forgotten (no one can recall doing this), or if another pupil mischievously decided to change a fellow pupil’s password as a prank. What I do know is that schools are supposed to be a place of learning and should be preparing their charges for life in the real world.

We have all been told numerous times never to write our passwords down. Never tell anyone what our passwords are. Never use easy to guess passwords. And yet here is a school ordering their pupils to do exactly that!

Should schools be teaching children IT skills that they’ll need later in life, or is it acceptable for them to ingrain in youngsters that passwords should be recorded in home work diaries in the knowledge that every other child, teacher and parent with access to the home work diary has that child’s log in?

How many children will use the same password for their maths homework that they do for their iPad, computer, mobile phone and email address? I’m lost for words, what do you think?

We don’t normally name and shame on Tamebay, so it would be very wrong of me to reference Trinity School in Newbury. Do you keep your passwords safer than this particular school and do you teach your children to keep their passwords safe?

4 Responses

  1. You try to emphasize the point of password security BUT my 13 year old daughter found it too difficult to remember her LASTPASS password, so reverts back, I assume, to some password that’s pretty much the same for all accounts.

    It seems to be the same with theft, burglary etc etc, it’s only when the majority experience this that they will take better precautions albeit a little late.

    The old chestnut of PREVENTION is better than cure is even more important today, in so many aspects in life, than it ever has been.
    Name and shame!
    You naughty boy Chris!! B-)

  2. Didn’t have these problems when I went to school in the 60s and 70s. “The dog ate my homework” did the trick 🙂

  3. posh suvverners wiff puters , kids still have to write with their fingers on the window condensation up north

  4. I imagine they are small children. Its not going to be a huge issue if kids as young as 12 are being told to write down their password. I’d be more concerned if they were still telling that to the 14-16 year olds. Its not like the kids will have access to payment information or the like. They might lose their neopets account but I think recovering your password is as useful for experience. No one had to tell me 15 years ago not to write down your password so I’m sure the kids will figure it out.

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