Fergus Cassidy

p@$$w0rdz

"JUST get out there and do it!", barked the editor, who was perilously close to a sanity deadline. "It's not rocket science you know", he bellowed after me as I scurried out the door. He was right.

He wanted a vox pop poll on what people had to say about Jack Charlton as Ireland manager. On whether the sainted man's halo had slipped sufficiently to strangle him.

The team had been floundering and I had to find out if public support was likewise. Grafton Street seemed the obvious place to start. Obvious and stupid.

People who stroll down Grafton Street are immune to being stopped. They're used to it. Enough to know how to find an alternate route. Like potholes. I didn't stand a chance.

Anyone who tries to stop people in a busy shopping area like Grafton Street is looking for something and it's usually money or the promise of it.

I was only looking for information and the only thing I found out was that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Approaching strangers looking for information about them only works when there's a context or obvious reason in asking for it.

If it's a service or product that people are interested in getting then it's fine to unfurl the forms. Many of these application questionnaires are lengthy - enough for writer's cramp.

People can also be coaxed into providing personal details by dangling a carrot. Take supermarket loyalty cards. I have one in front of me and it asks for my date of birth; home and mobile numbers; home and work email addresses; the number of people in the house and the gender and date of birth of children.

Their friends wouldn't know some of those details but people have no qualms in handing it over to a third party. The price seems right and the benefits of disclosing personal information are judged to outweigh the risks.

That practical approach, though, has been around for a long time. When telephones came into everyday domestic use, most people didn't baulk at sending intimate details down the line.

Same for the postal service. Really personal information committed to paper, a hint of adhesive away from prying eyes.

Yet who was going to go to all that trouble to listen in on phone conversations or see what Uncle Jack was up to in America? The lack of security was never a hindrance to people using these technologies in their everyday lives.

That attitude lives on today, in the midst of a full-blown switch to networked computing. And because of this, we're getting bombarded with dire warnings about security. Of course there are aspects to this which are important, but let's not get carried away. For the moment, the benefits of using newer communication technologies do outweigh the risks.

Last week the Samaritans launched an email service for Britain and Ireland. A spokeswoman explained that many callers can't muster the words on a phone. Desperate needs call for desperate measures and an email, no matter now insecure, could save a life.

The Irish Revenue also launched a new service recently whereby tax credits can be claimed by SMS. I tried it and was requested to text my social security number back.

Concerned about risk, I contacted Bruce Schneier, one of America's most respected security analysts: "there are probably dozens of easier ways for an attacker to get them [social security numbers] than eavesdrop over an SMS".

The same goes for computer passwords. So what if some survey said that 70% of people would hand over their password for a bar of chocolate if asked. I'd want a year's supply just to let them past the door.

The security firms, like the one which conducted the chocolate survey, want uncrackable, foolproof passwords. The rest of us want ones that are easy to remember and there's a way to go yet in bridging that gap.

Protecting physical assets from theft or damage is a goldmine industry, with large fees handed over for a service which will probably never be needed. Nonetheless, peace of mind is deemed a price worth paying.

When it comes to personal information and technology, the serious threat to security will come when we stop calculating the benefits versus risks for ourselves and leave it to others to do it for us.