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For the sake of this discussion, we will assume that the old password is "oldPW" and that the new password is "newPassword".  Of course, "newPassword" would be a terrible password; do not use it.

If you save your LAFN password on your computer then, if you want to change it, you will have to enter your new password in three places:

A.) LAFN User Services
B.) Internet Options
C.) email client program

(Note that Netscape Messenger is the name of the Netscape email client and does not refer to any "Instant Messaging" program.)

LAFN passwords are case sensitive.  That means that oldPW, OldPW, OLDPW, oldpw, OLDpw, and so on are not interchangeable as passwords.

Passwords should not be any real word (this includes foreign words), proper name, or other common collection of characters which might be identified with you as a person (such as your telephone number, birth city&state, zip code, license plate, etc.).

A good password should be at least six characters long and contain at least :

• one uppercase character and
• one lowercase character and
• one numeric character and
• one non-alphanumeric character (!@#$%^&*).

 Microsoft Password Guidelines
 MIT Password Guidelines (Ignore the last section, Changing your password)
 UNIX Password Guidelines (from some government site)
 Guidelines for Developing Passwords (from another government site)

These sites all provide general guidelines and go into more detail than is provided on this page.

Something to keep in mind though:  While a complex password is very good for keeping unwanted intruders out of your account, it will be absolutely useless for you if you forget it.  Therefore, be thoughtful when you are considering your new password, and be particularly careful when using non-alphanumeric characters.  It is very easy to forget whether you used a & or was it a %?  Maybe it was a # or a @?  or perhaps it was a ?

Personally, I would recommend using non-alphanumeric characters only when they have a clear meaning in whatever mnemonic you might use in creating a password ("Shave and a haircut? Two bits!" might become "Saah?Tb!".  Do not use this or any other example as a password).

While all the above guideline sites strongly recommend against writing down your password, we are not dealing with matters of national, corporate or campus security here.  Personally, I always write down the old and the new passwords first, then I make the changes, then I verify that everything is working as it should.

Even though I am a touch typist, when I am entering my new password in the various places, first I always make sure that the Caps Lock key is off, I always use two fingers and look at the keyboard, and I am very, very careful.

Only after I have verified proper operations do I burn the paper with the passwords and eat the ashes.

Also, when changing your password it is a very good idea for the new password to have a different number of characters than the old password.  The reason for this is that if problems arise and all you can see of a saved displayed password is "*****", then at least you know whether it is the old or new password.

Believe me, this is not an idle suggestion.  Murphy does not take vacations.

A.) in LAFN User Services - The next seven steps change the representation of your password on the LAFN server.  You must change your password on the LAFN server before you change it on your machine.

1.) Connect to LAFN as you normally do and go to the LAFN Home page http://www.lafn.org

2.) Click on "User Services":

 

3.) Click the "Login" button:

 

4.) Enter your userid and your old password, then click the "OK" button:

 

5.) Click on "Change your password":

 

6.) Enter your newPassword in the text field, visually confirm that the newPassword which is in the text field exactly matches the newPassword which you wrote down, then click the "submit" button:

 

7.) After you have clicked the "submit" button, you will see a confirmation screen:

Note that on rare occasion it can take longer than two hours for a password to become activated.

Okay, now you have changed your password on the LAFN server.  If you always enter your password manually, then you are done with this document and may  return to the LAFN Home page. .  Remember that it may take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours before your new password is actually used by LAFN to authenticate your dialup login.

If you prefer to save your password on your computer, then keep reading.

B.) in Internet Options - The next nine steps change the saved password on your computer; this password is used to connect your dialer to LAFN.  If you save your password on your computer, you must do this only after you have changed your password on the LAFN server.  Personally, I leave the old password on my computer until the authentication fails; only then do I change the password on my computer.

1.) First make sure that your browser(s) and email program(s) are all closed and that you are not connected to the internet.

2.) Open the Control Panel by clicking the "Start" button on your taskbar, then move to "Settings",  then click on "Control Panel".

3.) Doubleclick on "Internet Options" (your screen may differ depending upon your "View" settings):

 

4.) Click on the "Connections" tab:

 

5.) First select your LAFN dialer in the "Dial-up settings" text area by singleclicking on it, then click the "Settings..." button:

 

6.) Very carefully change the contents of the "Password:" field.  Remember, you are typing blind, so take your time and be certain that what you enter here is exactly the same as what you entered above in section A.6.

 

7.) After you have entered your new password, click the "OK" button to close the "Settings" window.

8.) Click the "OK" button of the "Internet Options" window to close that one.

9.) Close the Control Panel window.

All right, now you have changed the password on your computer which is used by the dialer to connect to LAFN.  This change takes place immediately and does not require any "restart" or re-booting nonsense.

Be sure to connect to the internet via LAFN to make sure everything is working before proceeding to changing the email client password.

C.) in your email client program - The next three steps take you through changing the password on your computer which is used by your email program.  This aspect is pretty automated due to the fact that when email password authentication fails, you are immediately prompted for the correct password and the entered correct (new) password goes directly into the right place for the email program(s).

Such is not the case for the dialer.  You do have to use the preceding B.1-9 procedure to change the dialer password, and you must do that (and have it working) before you do this.

1.) Connect to LAFN as you normally do.

2.) Go to read your email as you normally would.  When the email password fails, you will be prompted to enter the correct password.  The Netscape Messenger Dialog Box is:

The Outlook Express Dialog Box is:

 

3.) Carefully enter your new (correct) password in the appropriate text area shown above, then click the "OK" button.

Let's assume that you have written down your new password for handy reference and that what is written down is "correct". The possible problems you may run into are:

Problem 1)  Trying to use the new password on your machine to connect to LAFN before the LAFN machines have processed your new password.

Problem 2)  Entering the new password incorrectly in LAFN User Services

Problem 3)  Entering the new password incorrectly in Windows Internet Options

Problem 4)  Entering the new password incorrectly in the email client program's password dialog box

Problem 5)  LAFN's machines do not correctly process your new password change

Problem 6)  Windows Internet Options does not correctly process your new password

Problem 7)  Your email client program does not correctly process your new password the first time you enter it

Problem 8)  Your email client program does not remember your new password ever
 

Obviously the first four items are essentially the same problem which is human error or, as we diplomatically like to say  in the service biz, operator error.  Human error accounts for about 90-95 percent of password related problems.

(Problem 1) - Solution:  Don't even think about considering the inability to connect to be a problem until at least two hours have passed from the time you changed the password at LAFN User Services.  To be honest, I would not consider it to be an actual problem until at least eight hours have elapsed.  So let's say that you have waited eight hours and still cannot connect.

(Problems 2, 3, 4) - Discussion:

In general, the most common human errors regarding password entry are:

• Inverted CapsLock (NEWpASSWORD instead of newPassword)
• forgetting what gets capitalized (NewPassword instead of newPassword)
• all lower or uppercase instead of selective capitalization (newpassword, NEWPASSWORD instead of newPassword)
• mixing similar appearing characters; the most common offenders are: 1 (one) and l (little ell), 0 (zero) and O (big oh).  Other candidates, especially when reading handwriting are: 5 (five) and S (big ess), 2 (two) and Z (big zee). d (little dee) and cl (little cee little ell), and others depending on your personal writing style.
• variations of typos including missing, extra, incorrect or transposed characters (newPasword, newPasssword, newPastword, newPasswrod instead of newPassword)

Disregarding the exact human error, how does one determine where the problem lies and how does one fix it?

If you cannot connect to LAFN, first try to decide what the mechanism is which is preventing your machine from connecting..

Did your modem connection (negotiation) tones sound different or have a different pattern from what you are accustomed to?  If so, then the problem probably has nothing to do with the password;  it was probably a flaky connection and it could be either your machine, the telephone company, or LAFN's machines.  A typical window indicating this kind of problem is:

Other error messages might include (but are not limited to):

Error 629:  You have been disconnected from the computer you are dialing.
Error 635:  Cannot establish the Dial-Up Networking session.
Error 640:  Unable to negotiate connection.
Error 676:  The line is busy. Try Again Later.  (Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Windows 98.)
Error 678:  The computer you are dialing is not answering please try again later.
Error 691:  The computer you're dialing into cannot establish a DialUp Networking connection.  Check your password, and then try again.

Generally speaking, these tend to indicate a flaky connection rather than a password problem, even error 691.  Try to connect again a few minutes later and see if the symptoms reproduce exactly.

To minimize the possibility that it is your machine (especially if you have had it on for quite a while and/or have been running some intensive applications), perform a cold boot on your machine (cold boot means shutting it down, actually turning the power off, waiting at least ten seconds, then turning the power back on; this forces all the electronics back to the ground state).

If the problem is with the telephone company, then the bad news is that all you can do is wait.

If you have the phone number of another LAFN user in your geographic area, you might try calling them on the phone and asking them to see if they are experiencing similar problems.  If so, then the good news is that all you have to do is wait.

(Problems 2, 3, 5, 6) - Possible Solutions:

On the other hand, if the dialer says, "Dialing...", then "Verifying username and password...", and then the following window pops up:

then the password in your Internet Options is definitely not the same as the password at LAFN.  Stop right here at this window.  Look at it carefully.  First make sure the "User name:" text field is correct.  If it is, then count the number of asterisks (*) in the "Password:" text field carefully.

If the number of asterisks is not the same as the number of characters in your newPassword, then this is almost certainly the problem.  Delete all the existing asterisks, then very very carefully re-enter your new password in the password field.  Click the "OK" button.  If this fixes the problem, then go back to section B and re-enter your password very methodically.  That should take care of a Problem 3 situation.

Even if the number of asterisks is correct, you may have entered the password incorrectly in Internet Options.  As in the preceding paragraph, delete all the existing asterisks, then very very carefully re-enter your new password in the password field.  Click the "OK" button.  If this fixes the problem, then go back to section B and re-enter your password very methodically.  That should take care of a Problem 3 situation.

(Problem 2, 5) - Discussion and Possible Solutions:

If the above does not fix the problem, perhaps you entered the password incorrectly at the LAFN User Services page or maybe the LAFN machine made a mistake; it's rare, but it does happen occasionally.

If you entered the wrong new password at LAFN User Services, you are in a bit of a pickle.

One thing you can try is to enter (in Internet Options, see section B.6) some likely or probable variations (mistakes that you might have made) of your new password, most notably playing around with capitalization (all caps, no caps, capitalize what would seem to be "important" characters in your password).  Write down every single different variation that you use.  Try to connect between each change.

You might get lucky and accidentally stumble on the what you actually entered in User Services.  If so, you can either decide to use this existing, "not quite what you had in mind" password by going back to Internet Options (section B) and enter this altered password, or you can decide to go back to User Services (section A) , enter the "correct" password, go into Internet Options (section B), enter the "correct" password, and go from there.  This would take care of a Problem 2, 3 or 5 situation.

But to be honest, if you forgot a character or slipped in an extra character or typed an incorrect character, the odds are that you will not stumble on the altered password by hit or miss guesswork.

Another thing to try is to enter your old password in Internet Options and try to connect.

See, even though throughout this document I've been referring to "your password at LAFN" and "your password on the LAFN machines", the fact is that LAFN does not save your password as a clear text collection of characters.  What is saved on the LAFN machines is actually a hash value (a type of one-way encryption) of your password.

When you dial in and send your password to LAFN's machine, LAFN takes the password your machine sends, runs it through the hash function and compares that resulting hash value against the hash value which is stored at LAFN.   There is no (known) way to re-create the input to a hash function from the output value of a hash function.  It truly is a one-way street, and the upshot of all this is that LAFN has absolutely no way of telling you what password you entered when you changed your password in User Services.

However, things are not as bleak as they would appear.  Even though LAFN cannot tell you what your entered new password was, LAFN (Mel, Gladys, and a very few others) can re-enter your new password for you at the administrative level, or assign you a completely different password altogether.  This should be done as a last resort.

If you can get online somehow (a friend's computer, a work computer, the library), go to the LAFN home page and click on "Request Assistance from LAFN.  Open a trouble ticket to report a problem."  Fill out the trouble ticket being as concise and descriptive as possible.  Be sure to include your name, userid, and phone number.

If you cannot get online, you can leave a message on the LAFN Answering Machine at (888) 523-6674.  Be sure to include your name, userid, and phone number.

Please note (excerpt from the LAFN Users' Manual):

... while there is nothing preventing you from calling the phone number, sending e-mail, and creating a ticket, that will result in 3 tickets being generated for you. Since all of our mentors are volunteers, that will not endear you to them.  The fastest approach is to generate the ticket yourself since it eliminates at least one manual step.

So now let's say that you have had your password entered at the administrative level.  Wait at least two hours, then go back up to section B, "Entering your password in Internet Options" and start from there anew, re-entering whatever password exactly as you provided it to Mel or Gladys.  Follow that procedure again all the way through.  If the problem was with how the password was entered at the LAFN User Services change password page, or if the problem was due to the LAFN machines "dropping a stitch", this will resolve the issue which caused a Problem 2 or 5 scenario.

(Problem 6) - Solution kludge 1:

Sometimes though, it is Windows that gets confused.  You may enter you password in the right place, have the "Save Password" checkbox checked in the "Connect To" (dialer) window, and it still does not save the correct password.

This is not a common problem but neither is it unheard of.  Something which I have found which sometimes works is to:

1. uncheck the "Save password" checkbox in the "Connect To" window
2. click the "Cancel" button to cancel the connection
3. attempt to connect again (you will have to enter the password manually in this "Connect To" window) while leaving the "Save password" unchecked
4. after you have connected, disconnect
5. attempt to connect again, but this time when you enter the password manually, check the "Save password" checkbox
6. after you have connected, disconnect
7. try to connect again, this time using the saved password

I know that this looks suspiciously like a kludge.  That is because it is a kludge.

What I do know is that this fixes the problem sometimes, and to me that is the bottom line.  Sometimes I have to swallow my intellectual pride and admit that I don't know why something behaves the way it does.
 

(Problem 6) - Solution kludge 2:

A variation of the preceding kludge is to delete and then re-enter all the password fields manually.  There are three places where the password may be entered:

1. The first field is found in Internet Options / Connections / Settings (see section B.6).
2. The second field is found by clicking the "Properties" button on the window described in the preceding line.
3. The third field is found in the "Connect To" window, the dialer which comes up when you try to connect (see the screen capture of  Problem 6 - kludge 1 above).

This sometimes works too.  Why?  Again, I don't know the mechanism, but I suspect it has something to do with making sure that certain internal status flags are reset then set correctly.
 

(Problem 6) - Solution kludge 3:

Yet another kludge variant is to first intentionally put in a wrong password (such as "xxx") in all three places described in Problem 6 kludge 2, try to connect with the full knowledge that it will not work, then go back and replace the wrong passwords with the correct password.

This is also occasionally successful.

Please observe that these kludges are not hard and fast procedures engraved in stone.  They are tinkering.  You do have to think a little bit about what you are doing (clicking "OK" at the right place etc.), and you can combine techniques from one kludge with techniques from another or make up your own kludges.  The ones I described are just a few which come readily to mind.  The common methodology among them is changing a setting or "reinforcing" a setting, perhaps more than once.

(Problem 4) -  Solution:

This one really doesn't constitute a problem as it is self-correcting in both Netscape Messenger and in Outlook Express: if you enter the wrong password, you are simply prompted for the correct one until you enter it.  If you can connect to the internet, then you know what your correct password is.  So this problem is listed only for the sake of covering all bases.

The Netscape Messenger Password Dialog Box looks like:

 

The Outlook Express Password Dialog Box looks like:

(Problem 7) - Discussion and Solution:

Netscape Messenger in particular is a little unpredictable in its handling of email client password changes.

After you change your password in LAFN User Services, your LAFN POP mail password also changes.  The next time you try to access your email, the password stored in Netscape (on your computer) no longer matches what is stored at LAFN and you have to enter your password again.  In theory, this newly entered password for Netscape should immediately be saved as an encrypted string in your Netscape prefs.js file.  In practice, this often doesn't happen the first time.  This is a very common occurance and is addressed in a Notice at the beginning of this document.

So if, after you change your password through LAFN User Services, you :

• go to read your email,
• are prompted to enter your password,
• enter your password,
• get your mail, then
• come back later to find that
• you have to enter your password again,

(Problem 8) - Discussion and Possible Solutions:

This problem starts off looking identical to Problem 7, except that you keep having to enter your password over and over and over again whenever you go to check your email.

The most common reason why your email client won't remember your password is because the checkbox telling the client to remember is unchecked:

• How to get to Netscape Messenger "Remember password" checkbox
• How to get to Netscape Messenger "Remember password" checkbox (if you have Norton Antivirus with email protection)
• How to get to Outlook Express "Remember password" checkbox
• How to get to Outlook Express "Remember password" checkbox (if you have Norton Antivirus with email protection)

However, even if the checkbox was and is checked, occasionally Netscape Messenger or Outlook Express just doesn't quite get it clear that they are supposed to remember the password after it has been changed.

The usual fix for this is a variation of Problem 6 kludge 1:

• you uncheck the "Remember password" checkbox for the email client,
• you go to your email client
• you enter your password manually
• you go back and check the "Remember password" checkbox for the email client
• you go back to your email
• you enter your password manually again.

1.) Open Netscape.

2.) Click on "Edit" then click on "Preferences":

 

3.) Doubleclick on "Mail & Newsgroups" to expand that item:

 

4.) Singleclick on "Mail Servers" on the left, then singleclick on your LAFN mail server in the text area under "Incoming Mail Servers", then click the "Edit..." button:

 

5.) Make sure that the "Remember password" checkbox is checked:

 

6.) Click the "OK" buttons to exit from Netscape preferences.
 

1.) Open Outlook Express.

2.) Click on "Tools" then click on "Accounts":

 

3.) Singleclick on your LAFN email account then click the "Properties" button:

 

4.) Click on the "Servers" tab:

 

5.) Make sure that the "Remember password" checkbox is checked:

 

6.) Click the "Apply" button then click the "OK" button.

1.) Open Netscape.

2.) Click on "Edit" then click on "Preferences":

 

3.) Doubleclick on "Mail & Newsgroups" to expand that item:

 

4.) Singleclick on "Mail Servers" on the left, then singleclick on the "pop3.norton.antivirus" mail server in the text area under "Incoming Mail Servers", then click the "Edit..." button:

 

5.) Make sure that the "Remember password" checkbox is checked:

 

6.) Click the "OK" buttons to exit from Netscape preferences.
 

1.) Open Outlook Express.

2.) Click on "Tools" then click on "Accounts":

 

3.) Singleclick on the "pop3.norton.antivirus" email account then click the "Properties" button:

 

4.) Click on the "Servers" tab:

 

5.) Make sure that the "Remember password" checkbox is checked:

 

6.) Click the "Apply" button then click the "OK" button.

updated 04 August 2004 2040 pdt jtm