With great power comes great responsibility
For over a year now the F1s have been using the old strawberry-coloured iMac. I set them up with a shared account, and a password that we all knew. That’s bad of me, but as secure as was needed in this environment.
This week Sophie (8) has been bugging me to set up separate accounts for them. They want some privacy, and don’t want the other reading their email. Fair enough. So yesterday I created new users, moved their separate mail into the right places, set up their iTunes library in the ‘Shared’ account, blah blah. I let Sophie set herself a password, and this morning Rachel (11) asks me if she can change her password?
Of course.
“I want to change it to <object>,” she said.
She hasn’t got quite got the hang of this. “Don’t tell me your password! Don’t tell anyone your password.”
“But you’re my Dad,” she says, innocently.
“It’s all right,” I said, “I have ultimate power over that computer.”
One of these days I will teach them about secure passwords, password security, and the concept of root accounts. But not yet: Rachel asked how to make the change, and before I could move Sophie had nipped in, <clickety click>, and shown her.
I will watch her career with great interest.
Your post makes me feel even older than I actually am, as “I remember those days” when it was the System Administrator’s turn to work late (we alternate) and one of the little ones (cannot bring myself to use term F1) had forgotten their password….
Nowadays, we each have our own laptop. Sometimes we all sit round the same table, sending each other the odd email (or in the younger generation’s case, other more up to date modes of IM et al.)
Comment by Maxine — 20 April 2008 @ 23:45