When I log into my bank I put in my user account number, on the next page confirm a recognised picture and sentence and then on the final page put in a five digit pin number.  There isn’t a dongle or any other measures.  

 

When I went to change my password or as they call it “pin number” I could still only use five numbers (and no other characters), but they call it a pin and not a password.  I’m not very happy about that and it’s a large bank here in England – Santander.

 

How worried should I be or is this similar to when I used the option the encrypt my home directory when I setup my Ubuntu laptop – it unlocks using only my eight digit login password but the system prompted me to make a note of a thirty two character long passphrase that would be required presumably if I put the drive in another machine.  Is this to do with the login keychain system. Is the bank doing something similar.  The bad guys still only need to guess five numbers don’t they?

 

I hope you get what I’m trying to say and I hope you can make these things clearer to me.

 

Many thanks

 

Gary

 

And please say hi to my son Ryan who will be happy to hear his name on your show.