Today’s Byte is a little different – it’s a book recommendation. Although in fairness I have to admit that I haven’t read the book. I learned about it through the Future Tense site. Here’s the line that caught my eye, “Write down passwords, keep them in wallet.”

It is advice from Bruce Schneier, security expert and author of Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly about Security in an Uncertain World (http://www.schneier.com/book-beyondfear.html), which I’m planning to read soon.

I loved his advice! And from what I can tell I like his philosophy. He describes the need to balance security with utility, which I think is a good reminder for us all. He broadens the topic, but I’ll stick to technology here.

There are cases when I think it is very important to remember technology:

• Never use email for private information
  
• Don’t use your credit card to make an online purchase from the computer at your library
  
• Tell kids not to give even basic personal info to online buddies
  
• Use a password with letters, numbers, symbols, capped and lower cases, when it’s important
  

I also think there are times when we are too clever. Do you really need to go to the grave with your library barcode and pin memorized? The books are free after all. Does everyone in your house need to have a separate password for the computer? What if you want someone to look up a number for you? You’ll have to share your password anyways, which gets back to the balance of utility versus security.

Just some things to consider…