I was queueing in my local supermarket over the weekend as we all do when I couldn’t help overhear the conversation between two employees.

The first was on the checkout and whilst scanning goods was chastising her friend who stood beside her. Both seemed completely unaware as to the existence of the five or six shoppers in the queue.

Checkout Girl: U meanz yous got noone at hum whos no ur pin!!! 

Friend: na 

Checkout Girl: Nutter! 

Friend: you int spose 2 let any1 no is ya!! 

Checkout Girl: but spose ya lose it like now. 

Friend: I na i na but i’ze never forgotten it before. If I try it again it’ll have me card.
 

Checkout Girl: wot uz ganna do then? wot about tonite? 

Friend: got £10 till payday!! 

Checkout Girl: thatz 2 weeks!!!!! 

Checkout Girl: shud do what i does girl. ma mum and ma sister no my pin, coz i use my birthday, 1808, can’t forget that cannae 

Quite aside from the terrible English on display I was immediately struck by how happy these two were to discuss in front of stangers how they chose their pin numbers, even going to the point of one girl letting us know when her birthday, therefore her pin is.

I don’t know why I was surprised though, at work you can walk pass any number of salespeople desks and find the obligatory post-it not stuck to the side with various passwords written on it.

It also reminded me of an article (see below) that talked about a survey carried out asking members of the public for their passwords. It concluded that 71% would, for the bribe of a chocolate bar, give a stranger their computer account details. This along with the amount of information people are will to put up about themselves on social networking sites such as mySpace and Facebook only demonstrates the lack of understanding that most people seem to have about personal security.

Staff reveal passwords for a chocolate bar | OUT-LAW.COM: “Staff reveal passwords for a chocolate bar

OUT-LAW News, 20/04/2004

A survey of office workers at London’s Liverpool Street Station found that 71% were willing to part with their password for a chocolate bar. It’s the third annual survey of its kind and seems to confirm that office workers are still not information security savvy…………..

(Via .)

Staff reveal passwords for a chocolate bar | OUT-LAW.COM

 

This doesn’t bode well for the introduction of the National Identity Card as proposed by HM Government. The massive series of inter-linked databases with multiple access points (councils, police, probation, immigration, courts, business?) containing an ever increasing array of data on each and every individual and their activities in the UK will potentially be breached for the price of a Kit-Kat.

Makes you wonder what a key worker would be willing to share for the price of a holiday, or a car, or……