Have We Reached Overload on Passwords and Security?

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I don't know how you feelabout passwords, security questions and the proliferation of barriers placedbefore us so we can supposedly safeguard our online activities. But I'mreaching saturation point with it. Those who devise websites and, especially,those who produce the ever-growing range of security products and advice, wouldhave us invent a new password for each of the sites and applications we usewhere personal information is stored. They also want us to produce securityquestions and answers for each; all different from the others. I've actuallyrun out of mothers to provide maiden names, towns I was born in and favouritefilms, books or pasta dishes.Just to confuse the issuefurther, we are required, REQUIRED mind you, if we are not to break the primaryrule that, 'You MUST NOT write any of this information down'. Now, I acceptthat I am approaching my dotage and will soon achieve my ambition of becoming acantankerous old sod (what do you mean, I already have?), but even the youngadmit to running out of personal memory space (as opposed to the virtual type)to store and retrieve all these different passwords and the accompanyingparaphernalia. And then, just in case wethought we'd managed to jump through all the hoops and commit all thisinformation to memory, they tell you that you should change the lot every threemonths or so. In fact, at my place of employment, they recently introduced awonderful new system that must be accessed if you want to find out what you'vebeen paid each month; they no longer produce the printed versions they used to.(Exactly how one is supposed to provide an original pay slip for thoseorganisations that require such evidence in the future, I've no idea and they'vefailed to explain). But, on this wonderful site, which most of us took at leastseven attempts to actually access the first time, due to its idiosyncrasies, thepassword lasts for, wait for it….40 days. 40 DAYS; that's right. So, every 40days you have to think of a new password. This means that most payslips willonly be accessible after a change of password. Brilliant, eh?I foresee a future inwhich all education will revolve around the invention of passwords and securityquestions and answers, at the expense of actual learning. Of course, most peoplewill continue to consider that 'password' is adequate security and forget thattheir date of birth, mother's maiden name and place of birth are all readilyaccessible to the public from their many profiles on social networks.So, is there a solution,something that will render this whole farrago redundant? Well, Norton 360 seemsto have partially solved the problem by offering to store passwords securelyfor you and then retrieve them at your request. And I'm sure there must beother such helpful solutions out there. But I'm looking for something a littlemore radical, something that requires no memory at all, in fact.If all PC, Mac, Mobilemanufacturers (all those who produce any device that require us to installsecurity, in fact), were required, by law, to include a fingerprint or irisreader, none of us could lose or forget our means of access (unless we sufferedamputation or blinding, of course). Further, it would be near impossible tosteal or otherwise retrieve the necessary entry requirements. Of course, themanufacturers of security software would lose a lucrative market. But who'smore important here; the customer or the business that makes money out of thecustomer?Sorry, silly question. Ofcourse the business is far more important. Or so they would have us believe.